Writer's Block
by Monkey and Cookee
Summary: AU. Sasuke is a romance novelist who happens to get writer's block for the very first time. After seeing he can't get rid of it, his muse decides to show up to help. Just who is this muse and can he help Sasuke? Will Sasuke let him? SasuNaru -M.
1. And Then Came the Muse

**Monkey: Whoo! I own nothing! **

**Why am I starting so many fanfics? Well, this one has actually been sitting on my computer for a few months now, and I haven't been able to add into it so I figured what better way to get motivation than to put it up on FF and then have to update it? xD**

**Hope you like it!**

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Irritated onyx eyes found themselves staring at a laptop screen, scanning through all the words written there with a scrutinizing gaze.

Pursing his lips, the young raven deleted everything before him, running a hand through his black locks soon after.

"Damn it…" He muttered, pushing himself away from the desk in front of him. His chair screeched as its legs scraped the wood floor. Slumping back in his chair, he reminded himself to buy a more comfortable seat. He brought a pale hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

It had been nearly three weeks. Three weeks of this slump, this… this damn writer's block. And for the life of him, he couldn't come up with anything to write.

His cell phone began vibrating on his desk next to the laptop. He watched as it danced madly along the table, nearly falling off. He wondered about keeping his cell permanently on silent.

Few people knew his number anyway. Less of a bother for him too. He knew who it was and made no movements to pick up. Letting his eyes roll up to the ceiling, he ignored the call.

The sounds of the vibrations were enhanced by the wooden desk, but he just calmly waited it out. After a minute or so, the vibrating stopped, once again bringing silence to the whole house.

But that peace was short lived since soon after, his land line began ringing on the other side of his studio with a personal vendetta against him. Or the person calling wanted to give him a headache from hell.

_I knew I shouldn't have gotten a house phone._

The phone ceased its ringing and switched to the answering machine.

"If you've bothered to stay this long on the phone, you're going to annoy me. Leave a message and I definitely won't get back to you."

Beep.

A voice chuckled before it spoke. "I see you've changed your answering machine again, Sasuke. Though I have to admit, it's better than the 'Hn' you had before. Anyway, I know you're sitting there, listening to this, so I'm going to continue talking knowing fully well the glare you're sporting right now can't reach me."

At this Sasuke eased up on the annoyed glare. But he didn't get rid of it completely. It's not like he had to _know _he was still glaring.

"I called to warn you again. Your deadline is in a week from today. I hope you've at least written something down by now. If you want, I can send someone over there to help—"

Sasuke by now had walked over there and picked up the phone. "Kakashi, I'm in a writer's block. I'm not sick or dying."

A sigh. "Sasuke, you've never been in this much of a slump. You might as well be dying. Either you come up with something and soon or miss the deadline and get visited by _her_."

Sasuke held back a sneer of distaste. "You'll have something by then. There isn't a chance in hell I'm letting that walking nightmare set one foot in my home."

"Ah, so that's the reason why you never come to the office." Kakashi pointed out with amusement.

Black eyes rolled. "No. I don't go to the office because only annoying people reside there. Including you."

"Uh-huh. Well, have you at least got something? An idea, a thought, a direction?" Kakashi stopped himself from sighing again, he didn't want Sasuke to think he was losing faith in him. It wasn't like it was true, he knew Sasuke could pull something off in time, it was just a little stressing for everyone.

"No." Sasuke replied flatly. "Now stop calling me. If I don't have anything, it's on me. Relax."

"Oh I am relaxed, it's you I'm worried about. You're awfully calm for a writer in a slump." A little _too _calm, but Kakashi kept his mouth shut.

"I'm nothing but calm." Cool, assured and no room for argument. Even if he knew that was a half-lie.

"Alright. Good luck."

"Hn." And both men hung up.

The silver haired editor wearing a mask covering half his face interlaced his fingers in front of his grin, though the latter couldn't be seen. If anything, this was bound to be an interesting week. Especially if he was going to be constantly bugging Sasuke. He reached out to a manila folder lying on his desk, before opening it and raising a brow.

"Huh…"

Breathing out a sigh, the novelist replaced his phone and walked back to his laptop. The document page in front of him was completely blank, nothing but a blinking cursor there on the first line, mocking him endlessly.

"Damn it." He stopped himself from sitting down and walked out of his studio office.

He had heard about other writers getting writer's block often, but he never expected it to happen to him.

A portrait of him and his family sat on a wall he passed, greeting him with a smile. His mother and father were standing behind him and his brother, all four of them wearing a happy grin all those years ago. Well, his father looked more like he had on a simple straight face, but Mikoto always said that that was Fugaku trying to learn to smile. Giving the picture a smirk, Sasuke walked down the stairs, remembering how he and Itachi used to be.

Before he could laugh at how different things were between them now, he calmly entered the kitchen, walking around the island and to the refrigerator. He got himself a glass of water and noticed the half a dozen bottles of tequila just sitting on his kitchen counter innocently, gathering dust.

Which reminded him, he needed to clean those bottles.

Or at least get rid of them.

He nearly snorted but stopped when he remembered he was still drinking water. He was calm, cool and collected, no need for him to accidentally spill his water all over himself or choke on the water.

Because Uchihas didn't do that.

And Sasuke was an Uchiha, so he didn't do that.

His onyx orbs eyed the bottles with disinterest. He wasn't into alcohol but they were a gift from Itachi. Every birthday and Christmas for the last three years, the only thing Sasuke had received from his jackass of a brother was bottle after bottle of tequila.

Itachi had never told him why he got him those, but Sasuke was willing to bet the alcohol wouldn't stop heading his way until he finally got down and took out a bottle.

Though as to why his brother would want him completely wasted when they couldn't even stand to be in the same room together was beyond him. He didn't even get his present in person. Itachi always sent one of his lackies—er, _friends_, to give it to him the day _after _his birthdays or Christmas.

What an ass.

Sasuke briefly wondered if he had any shot glasses but quickly pushed that thought out of his head. He had writer's block. Nothing more and nothing less. He hadn't just been dumped by the love of his life (he hadn't even found it yet), he hadn't gone gambling and lost his life's savings (like he'd be stupid enough to do that), and he hadn't suddenly decided he wanted to die drinking (he could think of plenty more things he'd rather be doing when he dies). But he wasn't an idiot. The last thing he needed was to suddenly become an alcoholic.

_I could probably hold my alcohol well, _he thought. He paused for a moment then shook his head and walked out of the kitchen.

The best way to resist temptation was to get the hell away from it.

He sat down in front of his laptop and stared at the bright screen in front of him, hoping some idea would hit him.

Hours later, after he had taken a shower to try to relax, gone to the park for a change of scenery, eaten his dinner to focus better and even listened to some music and discovered nothing worked, Sasuke found himself filling up a shot glass with an open bottle of tequila.

He decided to go all out and drink it properly. What could he lose anyway?

He put a little bit of salt on his wrist and stared at it.

_Well, here goes nothing._

If this didn't work, he didn't know what would.

He licked the salt then downed the shot, finally sucking at a slice of lime last. The tequila burned his throat a bit, but he knew it could've gone down much worse. Closing his eyes, he put the chaser down and breathed out slowly.

That… wasn't so bad actually.

Figuring there was nothing to stop him, he filled up another shot and repeated the process.

But before he could drink it, Sasuke felt an odd presence near him. Still holding the shot glass, he slowly turned around.

And was greeted with the sight of a blonde with blue eyes.

"Hi!" The blonde exclaimed with a huge grin, waving at him. He stood only a few feet away from the raven.

"…"

"I'm your muse!"

"…" Sasuke nearly dropped the glass.

* * *

**Monkey: Can anyone tell who the muse is? xP **

**Well, I hope you guys liked it. If not, sorry to have wasted your time but still thanks for giving it a shot n.n;; **

**I have no idea when I'll update this next, but hopefully it'll be before Halloween xDD I don't know. xD **

**See you guys later!**


	2. Time to Question Sanity

**Monkey: I'm sorry for taking so long to update -sneeze- I'm really sick right now, but I'd rather do a fanfic than do my homework -3-;;**

**I hope you guys like it, and thanks so much for all your wonderful reviews x3**

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Sasuke backed up into the counter.

The shot glass fell out of his hand and shattered loudly when it hit the white tiled floor.

Sapphire eyes looked at the glass piece curiously. "You know you just dropped the glass, right?"

That shook Sasuke out of his shock. "Who are you? How did you get in my house?" He knew for a fact that only his mother had a copy of his house key, no one else, not even—especially not—Kakashi. He narrowed his eyes and took a step towards the blonde whose grin widened.

"I told you, I'm your muse." Amusement sparkled in his eyes.

"How did you get in my house?" He repeated, reaching out to snatch the other's arm...

Only to have it go right through him.

The blonde smiled at him, innocently.

Shock was clear in onyx orbs.

Did he miss?

He tried again and his hand went through his arm.

Sasuke pulled his hand back quickly. "What are you?"

His so-called muse titled his head to the side, the innocent smile replaced with interest. "Do you have hearing problems?"

The youngest Uchiha scowled. Who the hell did he think he was?

His muse.

Oh yeah, like that made sense. What the hell did he mean by _his_ muse? He'd never had one until now, and if he did, he doubt it would look anything like this guy.

"Get out of my house." Sasuke growled threateningly. He couldn't believe someone had the nerve to break into his house. Or that they had the stealth required for him not to notice.

He didn't know what he would do to the blonde if he said no, but he _had _to cave under his famous Uchiha glare.

The blonde merely smiled and clasped his hands behind his back, as if he wasn't just staring into death's eyes, or what Sasuke's glare has been called. "Nope."

Sasuke was baffled, but he'd never admit that. Not even under oath. Well... No, not even under oath. He was an Uchiha, the few emotions they openly displayed did not include confusion or any variant of it.

The guy in front of him had to be a moron. There was no other reason why he wouldn't back down. _No one _could last against the Uchiha glare. Unless they were Uchihas too, but this guy was too happy to be an Uchiha.

Sparing a glance to the clock in his kitchen, Sasuke noticed that it was time for normal people to be asleep. It was well past midnight. But for someone who found out he worked best at night, bed time wasn't an option at the moment.

He looked in front of him and saw the blonde was gone. What the...? He looked around the kitchen and found no traces of the intruder.

Oh damn.

He was going nuts.

It was lack of sleep mixed in with the stress of missing his deadline.

That was... odd.

He'd never shown signs of having hallucinations before, and he didn't think he had any reason to start now.

He ran a hand over his hair. This kind of thing could not be happening to him! Maybe others, but _not _him!

"You have a big house." The blonde menace spoke up next to him, making Sasuke nearly jump and turn around in fright.

Nearly.

Instead, he reigned in his reflexes at the last moment and simply turned his head and raised a brow, finding the other smiling widely at him.

How the hell had he managed to check his whole house so quickly? He hadn't been gone for that long, and for that matter, why was Sasuke letting him do as he please?

"Get out." He didn't care if he started sounding like a broken record, he wanted whoever the hell the other guy was out of his house _now_.

"Can't. Or at least not yet anyway."

_Can't or won't? _"I'll throw you out if I have to." Sasuke gripped the edges of the counter tightly, his knuckles turning white. He only hoped the other wouldn't say...

"You can try. But you won't succeed." His voice sounded confident enough. And Sasuke hated to admit it, and never would out loud, but the blonde moron was probably right. If he couldn't even touch the other...

Wait...

Why the hell couldn't he touch him?

"You're not real." It wasn't a question.

His answer was a sly smile that seemed to hold a lot more than he was letting on. "Maybe, maybe not."

Sasuke felt uncomfortable.

He knew the blonde knew because he could feel those blue eyes staring at him, almost like if he was trying to figure something out.

Normally Sasuke wouldn't be one to show discomfort or unease.

But then again, normally he wouldn't have some ghost in his house or have been willing to try Itachi's tequila either.

...

The tequila!

... Oh, Itachi was a _dead man._

"What do you want?"

The blonde walked around his kitchen, looking up and down the place casually, as if he hadn't just let himself into someone else's home and was apparently_ not real_. "I'm your muse."

"You said that already." Sasuke pulled himself away from the counter and walked towards the blonde who smiled and walked in the opposite direction. The young Uchiha followed him, weary of his moments. If he couldn't touch him, and he wasn't real, that only left him so many options.

One, he was a ghost.

But having a ghost for a muse is just too ridiculous.

Having a muse in general was ridiculous. As far as he knew, muses were only around to torment people and unknowingly give them ideas that would haunt them until they wrote them down, but those stories usually lacked a plot and good characters. To him, muse was synonymous to nuisance.

"Exactly. I'm sure you know what a muse does."

Of course he did. He'd just have a near rant about it.

A nod.

The muse saw this from the corner of his eyes and his face brightened. "Great! Then you know I'm here to give you an idea."

"I don't need it. I don't need your help."

The other suddenly stopped walking and turned around. Sasuke crossed his arms over his shoulder and looked at him.

"You're just stubborn. Here I am, coming here, happy to help, and you shoot me down before I even give you an idea." A small pout graced his lips and Sasuke resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

Wait, why would he resist to do that?

He rolled his eyes. "I don't care."

"Yes you do." The other shot. "I bet you've been nearly pulling your hair out for a while now since you have nothing to write about."

Sasuke scoffed. As if he would ever think about doing something so stupid with his perfect hair. "How would you know anything about that?"

A grin. "So I'm right then?"

"No."

"Right." His muse turned around and began walking out of the kitchen, Sasuke right behind him because he didn't trust the other.

Which brought his thoughts back to his previous musings.

His other option, was the worst one.

He finally cracked and this blonde annoyance wasn't real.

Damn.

The blonde noticed Sasuke suddenly stopped walking and turned around to ask, "What's wrong?"

"You really aren't real." Ebony orbs widened for a second before their owner turned on his heels and walked up the stairs and into his room, shutting the door loudly.

The muse frowned. "Oh come on, are you ever gonna hear my idea?"

He was nuts. That was the only explanation.

_Tch. What an explanation. _

Though it held more logic than his ghost muse theory.

But he was an Uchiha. Uchihas were not crazy.

Unless he wasn't an Uchiha by birth.

Maybe that would explain why he and Itachi clashed so much.

No no, wait.

He still had perfect hair. And the famous Uchiha glare of death that was common in his family. And Itachi was an ass.

No, he was definitely an Uchiha. So the only thing left to blame was Itachi.

Well, his tequila at least.

He cursed the moment he decided to try the no doubt cursed or spiked (can alcohol even _be _spiked?) present from his dear brother that would soon be dead.

That had to be it. He was hallucinating and that meant that he was crazy for even speaking to that blonde!

Maybe it was schizophrenia?

Black eyes closed as he quickly searched his brain for the symptoms found in schizophrenic patients.

Delusions, hallucinations, spatial disorientation in vision, thought disorder and loss of boundaries between self and nonself were the only things he could remember at that time.

Damn it.

As far as he knew, having one of those symptoms wasn't enough to get him drugged up on pills. Although… he could probably fake the other ones…

"Are you alright?"

Sasuke whirled around angrily, finding the blonde sitting comfortably on _his_ bed, staring up at him. Had he no sense for privacy? "Get out of here!" He took a step towards him and the blonde jumped off the bed, skipping to the other side of the room.

"I thought you knew doors don't stop me."

At this point, Sasuke wasn't sure what he wanted to do first.

Kill himself, or knock himself out to forget all about this weird experience or wake up and find out it was all a dream. Throw something at this guy who claimed to be his muse (what the hell was his name anyway?) until something hit him and knocked him out, or his so far favorite option, go kill Itachi. He already had a long list of reasons as to why he would want to do that, now he just needed to take action against that demon.

Hold on.

There was one more option.

Ignore the blonde moron until he went away or until Sasuke snapped. Possibly again.

That seemed like his best option at the moment.

_So I won't direct a single word to him. That ought to make him go and leave me alone. _

Unfortunately it didn't seem like the blonde was going to let him off the hook that easily.

"So, you want an idea or not?"

Barely giving him a glance, the raven turned around and walked out of his room and headed for his study, where he could probably put something together.

Too bad his muse decided to follow him.

"You know, things would just be a lot easier if you just accepted my help," his muse told him as he followed him.

He did not need help.

He would find some way to get out of this slump on his own.

Ok, so he _was _technically on his own since that blonde following him was part of his imagination, but still!

His bed seemed like the perfect place to go to escape this insanity. A little sleep should be able to help, maybe he could write in the morning.

"If you go to sleep, I'll just come back another day."

Sasuke ignored him and got ready for bed. Once he was only wearing a pair of shorts, he laid down and sighed, closing his eyes.

Three hours later, the blonde menace had yet to leave him.

"Get out of my house!" Sasuke exclaimed as he tossed the covers off him. He couldn't even get a moment's sleep while knowing the blonde was still there. It's not like his muse was talking, but he could _feel _those sapphire orbs looking at him, amused.

The blonde smiled and began skipping around the room, then ran into the bathroom and closed the door when Sasuke took a step towards him.

Wait, he closed the door?

He could close a door?

Sasuke raised a brow. Maybe he really was asleep?

Or maybe he really was schizophrenic, and he was the one that actually closed the door, but instead of feeling it as himself, he saw the blonde do it.

Could he know this if he was really schizophrenic?

Was he paranoid now?

If he was schizophrenic, didn't that mean he was already paranoid?

He couldn't remember.

He imagined that was probably true, but since his imagination seemed to hate him at the moment…

_Damn! _

He walked over to the door. "Open the door!"

His muse laughed. "Nope! Not until you let me help you out."

"I don't need any help!"

"Says the writer talking to his muse."

Sasuke scowled. "If I could hurt you, believe me, I would…"

"But you can't so come on in!" And the door flew open.

Sasuke ran inside and looked around the spacious area.

_What in the…?_

It was empty!

The door closed behind him.

_Shit._

Sasuke ran up to the door and tried to turn the knob only to find it stuck, almost as if it was locked from the outside. But the lock was on the inside and it wouldn't budge. He pounded on the door.

"Damn it, let me out!"

"Geez Sasuke, you're so indecisive, first you want me to let you in so I do, but now you want me to let you out?"

He knew his name? When had he told him his name? That had to prove it, there was no other way the blonde could know his name other than being a part of him. Although, he didn't know if he liked knowing he had such an annoying part of him.

Sasuke lowered his hand. He normally would never even think about doing this, but just once couldn't hurt.

"Ouch." He winced. He could feel that pinch.

Which meant he wasn't asleep.

Unless his imagination was making him feel pain and make him think he wasn't asleep.

Oh for the love of… this was getting too confusing.

"I'm serious Sasuke, just let me help you and I'll open the door," came the sing-song voice of his blonde muse.

"Never. I'd rather sleep in here." No one could doubt his obstinacy.

"You'll catch a cold."

"I don't care."

The blonde sighed. "Suit yourself then."

There was silence for a few minutes. Sasuke thought that meant that the blonde annoyance was gone.

"I'm still here you know."

Well that _had _to prove that he was part of his imagination, how else would he be able to know what he was thinking?

Sasuke had already slid down to the floor and was using the door as his support. He supposed it couldn't be too bad to sleep there, really. Other than the fact that his damn muse was right and he could catch a cold.

Well, might as well get some sleep, there wasn't a chance in hell he was going to let that so called muse of his help him out.

He was an Uchiha, he didn't need help.

He regretted now never putting in a rug or something warm to lie down on in his bathroom, but then again, when he was buying all his furniture, he never expected to turn out to be a schizophrenic that would lock himself in his own bathroom.

* * *

Morning came. Well Sasuke supposed it was more like early afternoon if the light streaming in from the bathroom window was anything to go by. He lifted his head and looked around.

Crap, he really was in the bathroom.

But what about the door?

He looked at it and saw it was still closed.

Sitting up and shaking his head, he sniffed a couple times, then sneezed.

No way, he really _had _gotten sick!

He stood up and held his head, his vision swimming. He reached out for the doorknob and tried it.

It opened.

Great, now he wasn't just a schizophrenic, now he was a stupid schizophrenic. How could he have ever thought that he could lock himself in his own bathroom when the lock was on the inside?

He walked into his room and looked around.

No sign of the blonde.

"It was probably that damn tequila…" Sasuke mumbled, sniffling a bit. After checking the house for that blonde muse, he decided he was going to throw out every bottle of tequila he owned.

He walked into his studio and saw his laptop was on sleep mode. He hit the space button and waited for it to come to life when he noticed his cell phone lying innocently beside the laptop.

Sasuke couldn't remember where he had left his phone yesterday, it probably hadn't moved, but he was still a little wary when reaching out for it.

He picked it up and turned on the screen.

Five missed calls, twenty-two new messages and fifteen voicemails.

How in the hell had that happened?

He saw it was one-seventeen in the afternoon and he shook his head.

So much for getting a head start in his writing for the day.

_It was all… just a delusion brought on because of the tequila, that blonde was never here…_

Yet when he looked at the laptop screen, he took that thought back.

_Sasuke, I mean it when I tell you that I'm here to help you, until you do, I hope you have a good day, I'll be seeing you tonight._

Oh great, now his muse was setting up dates with him.

Sasuke sneezed.

He knew he shouldn't have taken that damn tequila.

* * *

**Monkey: -Sneeze- Bahhh I hate being sick. -.-;; But nearly everyone at school is sick, so it was only just a matter of time.**

**And yes, the muse is Naruto xP But, is he really a ghost? Is Sasuke just crazy? Or is Naruto something else?**

**Well you'll find out soon enough xD **

**Thanks for reading! x3**


	3. Sick of being Sick

**Monkey: No, not owning, if I did, then boy would I feel sorry for Sasuke and Naruto xP**

**Yes I'm still sick, but thank you those who wished for me to get better, now I only feel half as bad as last week :) **

**And in case you're wondering, yes, the only reason this chapter had a sick Sasuke was because I'm sick. I like to make others suffer too. xP**

**Hope you guys like it, and thank you so much for all your reviews!**

* * *

Sasuke narrowed his eyes as he felt a sneeze coming.

He would not sneeze.

He. Would. Not. Sneeze.

"A… Achoo!" He was thankful that he lived alone; that sneeze was _loud_.

Looking down at his laptop, he made a disgusted face.

Not only was he deleting everything he was typing after reaching the end of a page, he was also typing _on top of _tissues.

Granted, they were unused tissues, but still.

He picked up one of the four folded tissues currently clothing his laptop and brought it up to his nose.

Runny noses were gross, but there wasn't much he could do about them.

He blew his nose and cringed.

Tossing the tissue into the trash can by his desk that was already overflowing with blessed white handkerchiefs, he looked at his cell.

He refused to look through the cursed device. He didn't even want to touch it.

His stuffy nose was giving him a headache and finding out who had tried to reach him so many times and why, was definitely going to make things worse, he was sure.

Sneezing again, Sasuke gave a tired sigh and put the laptop to sleep.

Maybe taking a warm shower would help.

…

God, he looked and felt terrible.

He may be an Uchiha, but even he had some of _those _days.

His eyes were puffy, his nose and cheeks were pink and his face was pale.

Sasuke ran a hand through his hair as he stared at his reflection, then regretted it a moment later. His normally perfect hair was wet with sweat.

"Ugh…" He took off his shorts and boxers and stepped into the shower, turning on the water as hot as it could go.

He hoped this would make him feel better.

When he came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist, he found that his nose wasn't runny anymore, but now he couldn't breathe because it was just _stuffed_.

Not bothering to style his hair to perfection, no matter how effortlessly it was like always, he went into his room and laid down on his bed after putting on a pair of dark blue sweatpants.

Forget the deadline, the muse, the broken shot glass that he never picked up, he wanted some _sleep_.

He awoke a couple hours later, leaving him at five-twenty in the afternoon.

Sitting up, Sasuke reached for a handful of tissues by his bed and brought them up to his nose.

_Being sick sucks._

So far, he hadn't felt any hunger, but he knew that whether he wanted to or not, he had to eat. Even if it was just because he wanted to get better faster.

_Maybe now I can pick up those shards…_

He made himself some rice and cinnamon tea, not wanting to spend the energy he didn't have to make something more, then got on his knees to carefully pick up the shards, sniffling every few seconds.

If he thought his days were going to be long because of the deadline, they were going to be eternal now that he got sick.

Hopefully, it was one of those colds that really only lasted a day.

* * *

A few hours later, it was well into the night.

The thought of his muse making an appearance made him want to crawl under his covers and hide.

…

Ok, he took it all back.

He was an Uchiha!

Uchihas _never _cower and hide!

Even if no one had heard that stupidity that came out of his mouth, his ancestors would probably turn in their graves if they ever caught word of that awful thought.

"I told you I'd come back."

Oh, but Sasuke had never before wished to not be an Uchiha so much before that very moment.

"Leave me a… a… achoo!"

The blonde shook his head. "Bless you. I told you you'd get sick, Sasuke-chan."

"_Don't _call me that. _Ever_." Sasuke glared death at him and sniffled.

The muse raised a brow. Somehow, Sasuke didn't look half as intimidating as he did yesterday. Though that was probably because of the flushed cheeks and sniffly nose. "Sasuke-kun?"

"Not on your life." Maybe it was because he was sick, but Sasuke completely forgot about not talking to him.

The blonde nodded and thought for a bit. "Ah! Sasu-hime?"

"… _I'll kill you_."

Grinning, the muse clasped his hands behind his back and skipped around the bedroom. "You know, you'll never get an idea if you don't write."

"How do you know my name?" Sasuke ignored the fact that his reaction was a little late and blamed his headache from hell.

Sapphire eyes sparkled. "Because I'm your muse. I'm supposed to know your name." Sasuke could've sworn he heard 'how else am I supposed to be able to constantly bug you?' following that.

Sniffling, Sasuke frowned.

"What kind of muse would I be if I didn't even know your name?"

The raven crossed his arms over his chest. "So my name is all you know?"

"I know that you need an idea."

Sniff. "Right."

Sasuke walked into his studio with the blonde following him.

Thirteen more texts, five more missed calls and three voicemails.

How did that keep happening?

He sat down in front of his laptop and waited for it to come back to life again.

His muse sat down on the couch on the other side of the room, and those bright blue eyes were staring at him, curiously.

He could _feel _it.

Sasuke began typing, trying to ignore that curious stare, but stopped and deleted it once he got halfway through the page.

The strong scent of chamomile invaded Sasuke's nose all of a sudden, even if it was all stuffed up.

_What the? _He never made chamomile, he didn't even think he _had _chamomile tea.

He sniffed as best as he could, wondering if he was just imagining things. He turned around and saw the blonde sitting there, smiling, with a cup of tea in his hands.

He could hold things now?

It was his fuzzy head. It had to be.

"You know, I have an idea."

Maybe it was the way he said it, but Sasuke could've sworn that the muse was smirking behind his words.

He finally remembered to ignore him though, so it didn't matter.

"Seriously, if you look inside the tea, it'll tell you an idea."

_Oh great, now _I'm _not just crazy, but so is my imagination? _Sasuke sneezed. _This sucks._

"You don't want it?"

Silence.

Sasuke began to hear a pouring sound, followed closely by a soft sizzling sound.

Black eyes went wide when he saw the blonde pouring the tea onto the couch beside him. "Hey!"

He grinned. "I thought I could get your attention by doing that. I knew you couldn't ignore me for long."

Sasuke never noticed, but while he was glaring at the annoyance smiling in front of him, the tea on the couch disappeared.

Giving a small sigh, Sasuke shook his head and turned back around to face his laptop, hoping that the blonde wouldn't come near him since he was sick.

Ok, so as to _why _his imagination wouldn't want to get sick was beyond him, but ahhh, forget it.

"If you look in the mountain of tissues by your desk—"

"No."

The amused blue eyed muse grinned again because Sasuke was no longer ignoring him.

About an hour later, Sasuke's cell phone began vibrating around the desk like crazy, drawing both Sasuke and his muse's attention. They stared at it, neither making a move to pick it up.

Not that the annoyance could pick it up, although, at this point, Sasuke didn't know seeing as how he had been holding tea earlier.

Or maybe the tea was never there in the first place

He sneezed.

Perfect distraction from what could be a dangerous train of thought when he's sick.

_I need pills… _Sasuke sniffled. Surely getting drugged up on cold medicine could help with his… dilemma.

His phone finally stopped and both males turned their attention back to the blank document on Sasuke's laptop.

If the raven weren't so sick, he would've smirked. He would bet his next box of tissues that Kakashi had just tried calling his house phone.

Sasuke had unplugged it hours ago.

He mentally chuckled evilly then stopped when he realized what he was doing, even if he wasn't actually doing it. Yeah, he needed those pills.

But he wasn't even sure if he had any, he rarely got sick so he didn't buy cold medicine often.

His cell began vibrating again and Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"You should probably pick up."

Sasuke brought a tissue up to his nose. "It's just Kakashi." He didn't even have to look to figure that one out.

"But what if it's your parents?"

"It's not."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because they only call for emergencies, and my mother programmed my phone so that even when I have it on silent, it will ring very loudly whenever they call." He didn't know why he just told the blonde that, but oh well.

"You should still pick up."

He let his head fall back and growled. He hated to admit it, but he probably should pick up, if only to get the caller, Kakashi, to stop calling him.

"What?"

"… Finally. Sasuke, I know you hate it when I interrupt you, but this is important." Give the demi-sex god with the runny nose a prize! It was Kakashi.

"Stop bothering me." Sniff. "I don't have anything yet, but I will."

"But Sasuke, this isn't about… wait, are you sick?"

"No."

Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose. If he didn't know any better, he would say that Sasuke was like a kid still, or at least a teenager going through his rebellious phase all over again. "Stop lying, you sound as stuffed as Choji was at the Halloween party last year." Choji was an editor that worked with Kakashi, and the brunette had a thing for eating a large amount of candies every time he could.

"Goodbye Kakashi."

"But wait, Sasuke—"

Click.

"It could've been important," his muse sang.

"Oh well."

Kakashi sighed as he put his cell phone away.

Looks like Sasuke wouldn't be finding out tonight about a new person that was about to walk into his life tomorrow morning.

Sasuke sniffled again and stood up.

"Where are you going?"

The Uchiha didn't reply, but gave him a look that said, 'follow me, you're going to do it anyway.'

They left the studio and went downstairs, Sasuke pulling out a tissue from his sweatpants as they walked, bringing it up to his nose.

He would be damned if he didn't have any medicine! There had to be some somewhere!

His muse on the other hand was busy staring at Sasuke's back.

Sasuke's naked back to be exact.

He wasn't so sure it was a good idea for the sick raven to be shirtless when he was sick, even if the house was warm, but damn, Sasuke looked great from behind.

The raven stopped suddenly halfway down the stairs and his muse stopped just before bumping into him. He didn't know he if would bump into him or just go through him, but neither sounded like they would let him get away with it. The sick writer would probably lecture him to death about personal bubble issues.

"Achoo!"

"Bless you."

"Argh!"

The sapphire eyed muse cringed at Sasuke's reaction. Geez, he was only trying to be nice.

They began walking again and Sasuke turned on the light in the library room they walked into.

"Why aren't you sick too?"

Blinking, the blonde stared as Sasuke began looking up and down the rows of books. No wonder Sasuke became a writer, he was in love with literature!

That could explain the lack of girlfriend, but his muse doubted it since it didn't matter if Sasuke had become a bum or an evil villain plotting world domination, he could probably have anyone throwing themselves at his feet.

… And maybe that explained something else too.

"Because I wasn't the one who slept on the cold bathroom floor?"

Sasuke shook his head as he pulled out a book and the bookshelf they were standing in front of opened up to a secret passage.

"… Seriously Sasuke?"

"Shut up, my mother wanted to give me some privacy."

His muse raised a brow. "You live alone in a giant house and you don't answer your cell for crap, how much more privacy do you need?"

"I'm an Uchiha, it's what we do."

"Uh-huh."

Sasuke stopped walking down the stairs that the bookshelf had opened up to and turned around to eye the blonde who was at about eye level with him, but that was because his muse was on the step behind him. Ha. At least he had a height advantage.

"Which reminds me, what's your name?"

He grinned. "My name?"

"I'm assuming you have one, or that I have to give you one, since you're not real."

The blonde nodded and looked at the black walls around them lighted with torches.

… Uchihas were weird.

"You're still on that?"

Sasuke arched a brow elegantly despite his horrible state.

"I am real."

"Prove it."

His muse cringed and looked away. "… I can't. Not yet anyway."

"Then you're not real." Sasuke turned around and continued walking.

Frowning, his muse followed him.

They stopped in front of what looked to be a very squishy room.

Beanbag chairs, stuffed animals, pillows everywhere and a couple bookshelves full of manga and kid books. Besides that was a small cabinet.

"Is this…?"

"Most of it's from when I was little, my mother just couldn't stand to have it in her house since she claimed that every time she saw my stuff, she'd burst into tears, sad that I was gone and proud that I was so successful." Sasuke replied as he kneeled down in front of the cabinet and opened it.

It was halfway filled with different kinds of medicine. Aspirin, painkillers of all sorts, an inhaler, and other things the muse couldn't make out from his spot by the beanbag chairs.

"You have asthma?"

"I haven't had an attack since I was six, but yes, I guess I still do." Sasuke pushed some old bottles of medicine he had had since he was a kid, and looked all around the place. "Damn."

"What?"

"No cold medicine." Sasuke put everything back where it was when he first opened the cabinet and stood up, sniffling a bit.

His muse made sure Sasuke wasn't looking at him and he turned around, his back facing the writer.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and ran a hand over his hair, he'd been doing that a lot recently. But he couldn't believe he never kept cold medicine. Sure it was weird, but that cabinet was where he kept all his medicine and pills and everything. Well, his head was killing him, so maybe he should take an aspirin…

"Here."

The author turned around and raised a brow. His muse was holding up a cold medicine bottle towards him. "How the…?"

"Just take the pills."

Against his previous thoughts, he nodded slowly and took the pill bottle, reading the label and making sure he knew what he was taking.

Cold medicine.

Incredible. Sasuke didn't have any in the house if he didn't have any in the cabinet.

He didn't care of the possibility that was crazy and the bottle didn't even exist, at least he had something.

"… Thank you."

Nodding, his muse smiled at him then walked out of the secret room, Sasuke following him this time.

* * *

At three o'clock in the morning, Sasuke was getting ready to kill something.

Sure the pills made him feel all not-as-shitty as he had several hours ago, but that wasn't the problem so much anymore.

He felt a little dizzy, and by a little he meant that he almost missed the chair in front of his laptop when he tried to sit down earlier.

There was a very loud party going on in the house next door, complete with the blasting music and strobe lights that just so happened to hit his studio window directly more than half the time. It had been going on since eleven.

The cursor in front of him hated him, or at least loved to piss him off. It was blinking like always on the blank document, mocking him, knowing Sasuke would never be able to beat it.

Like mentioned, he still had nothing. His deadline was less than a week away and he had abso-freaking-lutely nothing.

And finally, his muse was sitting down on the ground beside him, grinning and holding a shot glass full of tequila.

It always came back to the tequila.

* * *

**Monkey: Achoo! -3-;;**

**Well, anyone wanna guess what's the surprise that Sasuke's going to have in the morning? xD**

**Who here thinks the muse is real? -Raises hand.- Who here thinks the muse isn't real? -Raises hand.- Who here thinks they should stop raising their hands? -Raises hand.-**

**xP**

**Thank you for reading! x3**

**Maybe I'll update later this week, if not, the next chapter will probably come next week x)**


	4. Meet the New Editor

**Monkey: I'm SOOOOOO sorry for the long wait! TT_TT School held me hostage for a while, and wouldn't let me go until Cookee paid bail... and she didn't want to be bothered ._.;**

**I hope this chapter goes alright, if not, I promise I'll make it up to you guys in the next chapter!**

**Oh, and since I still have ten minutes left, Happy Halloween everybody! XD**

* * *

Black eyes slowly opened. Sasuke closed his eyes again then sluggishly sat upright, stretching his arms over his head. He opened his eyes, now fully awake, when he realized a few things.

One, he couldn't believe he fell asleep on top of his laptop. He was lucky no one would be around to see the imprint of the keys on his cheek. Not to mention, his neck was killing him now.

_Ugh, how unprofessional…_

Two, someone had put a blanket over him. It was the blanket he kept in one of the guest rooms. He couldn't imagine getting up in the middle of the night to get it and still go back to sleep in a chair, he would've just gone straight into a bed. Unless he was a sleepwalker now.

_Great, schizophrenia and somnambulism, I'm freaking amazing._

Three, he slept away most of his day away again. A quick glance at the clock in the room showed it was two-twenty-six in the afternoon.

_Most of another day gone by, and I still have nothing. The 27th__ is almost here… and it's—_

The vibrating coming from his cell broke into his thoughts.

IDIOT EDITOR was blaring on the screen.

Loud knocking teamed up with the vibrating moments later.

"Sasuke! Wake up!"

If the Uchiha was anyone else (or not an Uchiha), he would've paled.

His editor was at his house.

_Oh God… it's Kakashi…_

His editor had finally come to kill him. Er… help him.

Well, both were on pretty equal grounds in his mind.

The vibrating stopped, then started up again seconds later.

He knew it was a bad idea to give Kakashi his number and address.

His house phone started ringing too.

… How did he _do _that?

Suppressing a yawn, Sasuke stood up and noticed his state of dress.

He was only wearing sweatpants.

Whatever. If Kakashi didn't like it, it only made things better, maybe he would decide never to show up at his house again.

"Sasuke!"

Rawr. He hate mornings—afternoons. Same damn thing.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Sasuke muttered on purpose.

He walked down the stairs, running a hand through his hair, ruffling it up a bit.

Hey, he still embodied perfection, even if he…

Whoa…

He wasn't sick anymore!

No sniffly nose, no scratchy throat. Nothing.

And it was all because of his muse.

Well, he was still crazy it seemed.

He opened the door.

Hello Kakashi.

…

Hello smiling blonde guy with sapphire eyes that looked just like—

"Hi!" the blonde greeted cheerfully. "I'm your new editor!"

… _Oh shit._

Sasuke slammed his door shut and leaned his back against it, thoughts racing.

What the hell was going on? Was that his muse? And if it was, what the hell was he doing with Kakashi? Better yet, could Kakashi even see him?

Perfect. If Kakashi couldn't see him, he'd at least be able to see Sasuke act crazy.

_Psychiatric hospital, here I come_. It would just be another place where Itachi would tease him mercilessly.

"Sasuke! Stop hiding! This was supposed to happen in the morning, but your lazy ass was in bed!" Kakashi exclaimed from behind the door.

Ha! That showed how much Kakashi knew! He wasn't in bed before! He was in a chair!

Yeah _that _was something he'd want to admit.

On the plus side, at least his cell and house phone stopped making a racket.

"What was supposed to happen? And who the hell is that beside you?" Oooh, he said it. Now Kakashi will know he's nuts.

Wait, he could claim he was still half asleep! He was still a genius! Not that he ever doubted himself…

"I told you, I'm your new editor," the blonde spoke up.

Sasuke couldn't read the tone in his voice. Was he amused? Was he upset? Was he scared?

Why did he care?

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "See? This is why you should pick up your phone every once in a while ("You called me once already this week, isn't that enough?"), at least then you would know what's going on."

Sasuke scoffed. He turned around and opened the door again. "Why are you giving me a new editor? What's wrong with you?" Kakashi was about to speak up when Sasuke continued. "Actually, what's wrong with you now that wasn't before?"

The blonde chuckled light, sapphire eyes twinkling.

Kakashi stared at him blankly. "Nothing's wrong with me and nothing's been wrong with me. But I'm editor in chief and I can't keep an eye on you like before. Besides, you need someone who can keep your ass in line."

The novelist raised a brow. "And you think that if you can't do it, someone else will be able to?"

"I don't know, but we're going to find out, aren't we?" And with his famous last words, Kakashi took a hold of the blonde's arm and shoved him inside the house, reaching in right after to close the door behind the two. Then he ran away.

Sasuke glared up at the editor on top of him. "… Get. Off."

Staring and blushing, the blonde quickly did so. "S-sorry."

Hm. He looked exactly like his muse, but he didn't seem to act like him.

The raven sat up and ignored the hand the blonde offered him. Standing up on his own, Sasuke eyed the blonde. Same height. Same face. Same whisker-like scars.

"Got a name?"

The blonde his hand back and gave him a grin. "Naruto Uzumaki."

_Naruto, eh? _Now he had a name.

He nodded. "Excellent. Now get out of my house."

"Can't." Naruto sat himself down on the couch, completely unfazed by the look he was receiving from the Uchiha.

_Can't or won't?_

…

So, it _was _him!

"And why not?"

"Because you need an idea and as your editor, I'm going to help you."

Sasuke paused on his way to the kitchen. "No."

"Yes."

Persistent little… "I don't need your help."

"Yes you do."

So, we're really going through this again? He walked into the kitchen and made himself some coffee. "So… nothing short of 'fuck off' will make you leave?"

Naruto made himself comfortable, hugging a throw pillow to his chest. "I'll leave later today, at night, but I'll come back tomorrow."

"I hate you." Maybe Sasuke could insult him enough to make him leave.

"No you don't."

"Yes I do."

"If you did, you wouldn't be making me a cup of coffee." Naruto grinned and couldn't keep the cheeky tone out of his voice.

"I'm not—" Sasuke looked down. Oh shit. He was preparing a second cup.

Good god, he was starting to care.

Wait, no he wasn't, he was just half asleep, that's all.

"Uhm, Uchiha-san—"

"Sasuke's fine."

"Right. Sasuke, I'm sorry for being nosy," Naruto began when he saw the raven walk out of the kitchen with two mugs of coffee. "But why aren't you wearing a shirt?"

Hmmm… good question.

Sasuke shrugged and brought the mug to his lips, drinking almost half of it at once, pretty much burning his throat. At least he was awake now.

"Does it bother you?" He smirked.

"Not at all, you look hot."

Sasuke nearly choked on his coffee. Well, there was the personality he knew and… hated?

He ignored the grin Naruto was sporting and went back into the kitchen to put his empty mug in the sink. "I'm going to take a shower. By the time I come out, I want you to be out of my house, got it?"

"Nope. Kakashi will kill me if I don't help you out." Or at least fire him, but Sasuke didn't need to know that.

Sasuke stepped under the threshold and leaned against it, eyeing Naruto carefully. "And you're not afraid that I'll kill you if you don't get out?"

"Nope."

He had balls, Sasuke had to admit.

"Whatever."

Sasuke turned around and walked up the stairs, leaving Naruto alone in the spacious living room.

Naruto bit his lower lip to keep from laughing until Sasuke was out of earshot. Once he heard the door to Sasuke's bedroom close, the blonde began chuckling, then outright laughing loudly.

Looks like no matter what form, things wouldn't change with him and Sasuke. He was going to have so much fun with this.

* * *

The young Uchiha stared at his reflection in the fogged up mirror after his shower. He reached out to wipe the mirror and sighed heavily. Maybe he shouldn't have been a novelist, he was a genius, he could've been anything he wanted to be.

He _had _to choose a romance novelist to top it off. Oh well, he could either curse his stupidity—which he didn't have an ounce of since he was an Uchiha—or he could go downstairs to see if his new editor was still around.

He walked out of his bathroom and threw on a pair of black sweatpants and ignored his shirt. He was in his own home and it wasn't like his "guest" would mind, he didn't seem to before.

"Why are you still here?"

Naruto looked at Sasuke who was at the top of the stairs, looking at him with narrowed eyes. The blonde offered him a grin. "You have hearing problems, don't you?"

Ohhh, it was _definitely _him. It had to be. But Sasuke refused to just straight up ask him in case Sasuke was just crazy. If he was, he didn't want his new editor to be the first one to know. And if he was just crazy, well, he wanted to plan how to get away with Itachi's murder before he got sent to the loony bin, that way he'd have something to do when he escaped—er, got released.

Sasuke didn't reply and he turned around and walked towards where his laptop was. After connecting it, he opened up an Internet page and ignored when the blonde walked into the room.

Sasuke went to a search engine and typed "how do you get rid of writer's block." He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly so he wouldn't kill the now laughing blonde. How dare he peek over his shoulder to see what he was writing? What right did he have?

Oh yeah, he was his editor, he had every right to see what he typed.

He added Kakashi to his growing mental list of people to kill as soon as he finished up his newest novel.

He clicked on the third link and began reading.

_It's easy to get rid of writer's block! Here are some easy steps you can use: _

_Step 1. Perform your own little ritual._

Sasuke didn't have rituals, unless he counted taking really long showers, but those didn't seem to help him at all.

_Step 2. Carry something to write with at all times._

He wasn't leaving his house anytime soon, so he figured his laptop was enough.

_Step 3. Write dreams down._

… Sasuke didn't have dreams.

_Step 4. Take care of the body that holds the muse._

… Life hated him. Before he could even control where his thoughts were going, he imagined his body holding his muse's body, and not in a very innocent way.

DAMN IT. STEP FIVE, WHAT THE HELL IS STEP FIVE?

_Step 5. Surround yourself with positive people_.

If life didn't hate him, then surely everything else in the world did. He didn't like people, let alone positive people.

_Step 6. Try not to be a perfectionist. _

_Good luck!_

Not a perfectionist? He was an Uchiha! He could be nothing short of perfection embodied!

And people said he was too proud.

If you got it, make other people cry because they don't, that's what he was always told.

Well, when life hated an Uchiha, it was time to take a break. Who cares that he hadn't done anything yet, he needed a break from all this Uchiha-hate.

Twenty minutes later, Sasuke was drumming his fingers on his desk.

This was ridiculous. Instead of taking a break from the stress, he seemed to be adding on to it by thinking about this muse and his editor.

This was just irritating.

Here he was, with writer's block, and here was Naruto, who looked exactly like his muse. Only he didn't seem to have an idea for Sasuke.

Irony was a cruel bitch.

A tan hand placed itself over pale fingers, pulling Sasuke out of his reverie and causing him to regard Naruto with question.

The blonde smiled kindly at him. "Don't worry, you'll get something."

And yet Naruto and his muse were like two completely different people

…

Oh great, now he was referring to his muse, _his imagination_, as a person.

Someone shoot him.

Sasuke pulled his hand out from Naruto's and he raised a brow at him. "Why are you here?"

Sapphire eyes sparkled. "Because I want to be."

"Do you have an idea for me?" Naruto tilted his head to the side a bit.

Shaking his head, Sasuke stood up and walked out of the room.

Naruto grinned, holding a card of the ace of spades. On the back, in black sharpie, was a simple idea he was sure Sasuke could work with.

Now, to get him to look at the card.

"Ready for a game, Sasuke?"

* * *

"No."

"Aw come on."

"No."

"Fine, then how about a story about a rich guy falling in love with his maid who is also the babysitter of his twelve younger siblings?"

"No."

"Ummm how about… oh! A maid who loves—"

"No."

"Is that all you say? I'm trying to help you here."

Sasuke continued to eat his rice and ignoring the blonde.

For the last twenty minutes, after Sasuke made some dinner, Naruto has been giving him random ideas that sound like they could be turned into some telenovela.

_I wonder if I should just give him the idea… _Naruto thought. Nahhh, he was having too much fun. He watched Sasuke ignore him easily as he finished up his meal. Naruto ate a little too, but it was healthy food, as he sadly found out. Sasuke hates anything that has sugar in it and for some reason, he had a grudge against ramen, so Naruto was out of luck with his favorite meal.

"Sasuke, I'm sorry I'm not much help, but I hope someone can help you with your writer's block," Naruto stood up and smiled. "Well, I have to get going now, I'll come back tomorrow to see how you're doing, alright?"

Black eyes looked up. Was he giving up? "You're leaving? Are you going to quit?"

Naruto yawned. "Not at all, but I didn't get much sleep last night before Kakashi was attacking my door in the morning so I'd like to go home and get some rest before I attack your door in the morning, since I know you aren't a morning person."

Sasuke stared at him. How would he know that? He looked away. "Hn."

Naruto grinned and helped put his plate in the sink. "Goodnight Sasuke."

He waved at him before closing the front door behind him.

And Sasuke was left alone.

* * *

Sasuke had finally lost it. He was alone at last and he couldn't stand it. Had he really gotten so used to the blonde's presence with just one day? Well, if he counted the other days his muse had been bugging him, maybe it was more than just one day, but Sasuke wasn't sure if his muse really was Naruto, or if Sasuke had suddenly become schizophrenic, a somnambulist and a psychic all at once.

Maybe he was dropped when he was a kid.

Nonsense, his parents were Uchiha too, they wouldn't be so careless as to drop their own child.

But then again, there was Itachi.

Ah, yet another reason to want to kill his jackass of a brother.

He stared at his laptop screen, that same damn blank document up there, looking all innocent when Sasuke knew it was laughing at him.

Yep, he was crazy, there was no denying it now.

So what did he do?

He pulled out his cell and began texting Neji and Gaara. And just who were those two?

Neji Hyuuga was a friend of his that was also a novelist, only he preferred to write thrillers. Sabaku no Gaara was another novelist friend of his that wrote horror stories. The three of them were considered walking blocks of ice sometimes, but they were just quiet people.

xXx

To Neji and Gaara:

_Hey, have you ever had writer's block? _

From Sasuke

xXx

He couldn't believe he was acting like a high schooler, texting his friends about his problems, but he was only twenty-three, so he guessed it was alright for him to still act like that, even if he never really did in the first place. But Sasuke hated calling people, and he made it a point to show that he hated it when people called him.

A moment later, he got a reply from both at the same time.

xXx

To Sasuke

_Yes actually, it reared its ugly head when I was nearing a deadline. It was actually hitting me on my last book. _

From Neji

xXx

To Neji

_So what did you do to get rid of it? _

From Sasuke

xXx

To Sasuke

_I've had it twice. Are you experiencing it right now?_

From Gaara

xXx

To Gaara

_Yes. What did you do to get rid of it?_

From Sasuke

xXx

To Sasuke

_I just waited it out. Then two days before my deadline, I got an idea and I just wrote for those two days straight. I made my deadline at least._

From Neji

xXx

To Sasuke

_I waited it out. It wasn't like my editor was going to kill me for missing my deadline, but three days before my deadline, I got an idea and I was fine._

From Gaara

xXx

Well that wasn't helpful. And neither mentioned an annoying muse from hell. Wasn't he lucky?

xXx

To Neji and Gaara

_Did you ever see or get attacked by your… "muse?"_

From Sasuke

xXx

It was scary how fast their replies came.

xXx

To Sasuke

_Oh God, you too?_

From Neji

xXx

To Sasuke

_You too?_

From Gaara

xXx

Maybe they were being tortured for being Ice Princes.

xXx

To Neji and Gaara

_Yeah. I thought I was going crazy._

From Sasuke

xXx

To Sasuke

_Listen to your muse. Your muse knows best._

From Neji

xXx

To Sasuke

_If I were you, I'd listen to your muse, they know what they're doing._

From Gaara

xXx

To Neji and Gaara

_Alright. I hope you two are right._

From Sasuke

xXx

To Sasuke

_Good luck_

From Neji and Gaara

xXx

Sasuke gave a tired sigh and put his cell away. Well, if even his friends had gone through the same thing, then he supposed it wasn't so bad.

xXx

To Sasuke

_If you don't want to listen to your muse, which I'm guessing is what you're doing, try getting high._

From Kiba

xXx

… What the fuck was Kiba doing in this? Kiba Inuzuka was a friend of Sasuke's too, surprisingly since they were total opposites, only he was a comedy writer.

_Get high huh?_

Guess it always came back to the tequila.

And that's why, an hour later, Sasuke found himself in his kitchen with another shot glass in his hands, using the same tequila bottle that he had used the first time.

Three shots later, he felt a familiar presence nearby.

"Hey Sasuke," his muse, that looked a lot like Naruto, greeted.

Sasuke looked at him, then at the tequila bottle, then at his muse, then back at the tequila bottle. He picked up the alcohol and walked over to the sink and poured the rest of its contents down the drain.

_Damn you Itachi._

His muse laughed at him. "I'm here to give you some ideas!"

… His ideas were worse than Naruto's.

An hour later, Sasuke laid down on his bed and stared blankly at his blue ceiling.

"You know you won't get any ideas like that, right?" The blonde muse asked with a chuckle, leaning against a wall as he watched the Uchiha.

The novelist refused to spare him a glance.

Why was his imagination doing this to him? Was it some kind of revenge? Did he overwork his mind until it decided to throw him a blonde to question his sanity?

He scowled. This was ridiculous! He was letting all this stress get to his head, he just knew it.

He had already tried asking his muse what his name was but the blonde kept ignoring him. Neji and Gaara must have been messing with him, listening to his muse was becoming a pain in the ass.

He heard the sound of dice clicking together and he looked at the blonde, despite his earlier thoughts. The blonde saw him and grinned, throwing the red and black dice into the air before catching them.

"You know you want the idea."

Sasuke looked at him sourly.

"Just catch the dice and you'll get the idea."

The novelist looked away.

The blonde tossed the dice at him, but the writer didn't even flinch and the dice disappeared before hitting him.

The muse laughed. "I wonder which one of us can hold out longer."

When Sasuke looked back at him, the muse was gone, leaving Sasuke alone with his thoughts. Just like Naruto did.

Damn.

He was going to throw out every last thing Itachi had ever given him and beat his brother over the head with a bottle of tequila the next time he saw him.

Now where was he?

Ah yes, Sasuke looked back up at the ceiling and cursed his luck.

* * *

At about four in the morning, Sasuke was once again asleep, but this time he fell asleep at the dinner table, a bottle of tequila sitting next to him with a note saying, "Don't forget to kill Itachi."

His muse returned and placed a blanket over him, to keep him from getting sick again. He checked to make sure Sasuke wouldn't wake before walking to the other room and turning on his laptop, curious to see if Sasuke had written anything yet.

The only document open was one that was titled, "5000 and 1 Ways to Kill My Jackass of a Brother."

The blonde chuckled when he saw a few things.

One, that it was made about a month ago.

And two, that the list was already at number 7568.

Oh yes, Sasuke was definitely the one.

* * *

**Monkey: I'm sorry the chapter seems rushed! -dies- But I tried!**

**So, what did his muse mean by "the one"? And is his muse Naruto? And how the hell did Kiba get into that conversation? **

**Who wants to see Sasuke screwed over by his muse again? -raises hand-**

**-drinks Monster while listening to Crazy Love by DBSK- Hmmm... Maybe Itachi should an appearance in here? :DD**

**Well, thank you all for staying with me in this story, again I'm sorry for taking so damn long to update! I promise I won't take forever to update (this story) again!**

**See you guys later!**


	5. A Helpful Hand

**Monkey: Hey look at that, I'm still not owning XD**

**I'm so sorry I haven't written into this for a while now, I've just been busy and sick. I know, I know, it just seems like excuses but hopefully I'll be able to update this story weekly again soon. **

**Hope you guys like it!**

* * *

Sasuke found himself waking up.

_Oh God no, not again…_

The raven sat up straight and groaned when he realized he was at the dinner table. He brought a hand up to slowly massage his neck, noticing that it felt so stiff.

He needed to stop going to sleep.

When was the last time he fell asleep on his bed? He missed it.

_Waking up means that I've lost some hours again…_

Sasuke stood up and stretched a bit, never seeing the blanket pooling in the chair while recalling some fuzzy thoughts about Kakashi, his parents, Naruto and a cruise to Mexico as he made his way to take a shower.

He wondered what the heck he had been dreaming of.

Hell, he wondered when he started dreaming.

While Sasuke was taking his shower, the door to the house opened quietly, revealing a grinning blonde.

Kakashi had given him a key that he made from Sasuke's without having the writer even know about it. Good thing he didn't know, otherwise he might strangle Kakashi and come after him when he was finished.

Naruto looked around and let out a sigh of relief. Wherever Sasuke was, it wasn't downstairs, which meant Naruto still had the element of surprise.

Surprise for what?

He didn't know yet, so he hoped it would be a surprise for the both of them.

Sapphire eyes looked around, unable to control his grin from widening.

"Oh Sasuke, if only you knew," Naruto said under his breath as he made his way into the kitchen.

Sure, it was afternoon, but he was pretty sure that Sasuke was barely awake.

Ten minutes later, ebony orbs were staring into sapphire ones.

Naruto smiled, lowering the plate of ham and eggs he made for Sasuke and placing it on the counter. "Hi Sasuke."

Try as he might, Sasuke couldn't keep his eye from twitching. "What are you doing here?" He thought only his muse could come into his house uninvited. It seems he was mistaken. If this didn't support his idea that Naruto _was_ his muse, he didn't know what did.

"I came to make you some breakfast. Well actually, I came to wake you up, but I heard the shower going when I got here so I settled for the next best thing." He eyed Sasuke's outfit which consisted of dark gray sweatpants. "… You really like being shirtless, huh?"

Hey, if you have it, make others wish they did too.

Sasuke crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the threshold of the kitchen. "Oh, I'm _so_ sorry, I wasn't expecting company."

Naruto shrugged at the sarcasm and turned back to the stove to make himself some breakfast, ignoring that it was one-fifty in the afternoon. "I don't mind, but even when you do have company like yesterday, you still didn't put on a shirt."

"Get out."

The blonde cracked some eggs. Good thing ramen wasn't the only thing he knew how to make. "Can't do that. I'm here to help you."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "You _aren't_ helping me."

"But I'm trying." Naruto glanced back at him over his shoulder. "I can at least give you that." He turned back to his food, leaving Sasuke a chance to think of a comeback.

Instead, the novelist scoffed and walked into the kitchen, ignoring the plate of food Naruto had made him in favor of making some coffee.

He didn't need Naruto's help, especially not with food. He wanted him _out._

Minutes later, Sasuke was sitting at the table with his cup of coffee just like he liked it, when Naruto sat down in front of him with an innocent smile.

Trying to ignore him (how could he have difficulty with that? He was an Uchiha for God's sake! Ignoring people came with his name! Yet for some reason, he was just having a hard time doing it to Naruto. But why? Could it be because he was his muse?), Sasuke sipped at his coffee.

"You know, for someone who has writer's block and who has a deadline only four days away, you sure seem awfully calm about it," Naruto pointed out before he began eating. He had a feeling Sasuke would ignore his food, but Naruto didn't let that bug him, he just set his food aside for when Sasuke wanted it.

Several minutes of silence passed. To Sasuke, the silence was a bit awkward. Of course, nothing was awkward for an Uchiha, but he was starting to doubt his name.

… Oh God.

Something _was_ wrong with him! Uchihas never doubt! Even worse, they never doubt their name! He made a mental note to call his mother sometime soon and question whether or not he had been adopted.

For Naruto, the silence was both comfortable and amusing. Comfortable because although he was known as a very loud, talkative person, that didn't mean he didn't know when it was appropriate to be quiet. He knew that if he tried to force a conversation on Sasuke, things would only get worse. Plus, Kakashi warned him when he got the job as Sasuke's new editor that Sasuke had a short temper and he could make people cry with his glares. After spending some time with him, he admitted to being a little surprised that Sasuke's glare had _no _effect on him.

The silence was amusing because Sasuke was trying to ignore him. Trying to because he would look at him and glare, then look away. Naruto ate some of his food to keep from laughing; he doubted Sasuke even knew he was glaring.

"Get out."

Naruto shook his head, happily munching on his eggs.

The raven lowered his coffee. He couldn't believe someone this stubborn was his new editor! At least Kakashi let him get away with everything!

His editor smiled at him before drinking some orange juice. In all honesty, Sasuke could probably just _throw _him out, he looked strong enough to do that, so Naruto wondered why he didn't.

_Maybe because he knows he can't._

"You know why I want you out of my house? You want to know why I can't stand seeing you in the day?" Sasuke's voice was very calm, peaking Naruto's interest.

The blonde finished his last bite of food and gave the Uchiha all of his attention. "Sure."

"Because you keep haunting me!" His voice rose, making Naruto tilt his head to the side a bit.

"Huh?"

"Leave me alone!" Sasuke stood up and glared down at him. "Stop coming at night! I know it's you! Stop plaguing my thoughts and dreams! It's bad enough that I think I'm going crazy, or I'm the biggest lightweight in the world, then you show up as my editor!"

At this point, Naruto understood. He sat there, chuckling light, patiently waiting for Sasuke to finish.

"You're turning my world upside down! Stop laughing, I'm being serious! Get out of my house! This was why I didn't—what is so goddamn funny?"

Instead of chuckling, Naruto started simply laughing at him. When he calmed down a bit, he looked up at the murderous looking raven. "Haunting you? I've only been here a day! I think you need some more sleep, Sasuke." He stood up smiling, picking up his plate and empty glass and walked into the kitchen.

Sasuke glared death at his retreating back, taking a hold of his coffee mug, his hand tightening around it to the point where he was afraid it would crack.

How _dare_ the blonde laugh at him? _No one_ laughed at Sasuke Uchiha! Especially not when he just confided in him that he thought he was going insane.

Now besides schizophrenia, somnambulism and whatever else he probably had, he was going to go to jail for premeditated murder.

Lovely.

Without directing another word to the blonde, he headed up the stairs with his coffee.

Naruto, with his head peeking out from behind the threshold of the kitchen, watched him go up the stairs in anger. He let out a soft sigh of relief.

That had been a close one.

Sasuke set the coffee mug on the small table by his bed and went to find his cell phone.

Was he going to call Kakashi and demand to fire Naruto? No, that would be taking the coward's way out and admitting defeat.

Would he text his friends like some moody teenager, telling them about how much Naruto annoyed him? No, that would be childish of him.

But he was going to text his friends.

xXx

To: Neji and Gaara

_Have either of you ever wanted to kill your muses?_

From: Sasuke

xXx

To: Sasuke

_Sometimes. But if you actually do it, the guilt and permanent writer's block will kill you._

From: Kiba.

xXx

To: Kiba

… _How the hell do you keep getting into these conversations?_

From: Sasuke

xXx

To: Sasuke

_Wouldn't you like to know? :P_

From: Kiba

xXx

Sasuke shook his head. Kiba's intrusion had given him a chance to cool off a bit, if only to get a little miffed that he wouldn't tell him how he did it.

He stared at his nearly empty coffee mug and softly cursed. He wanted more.

But in order to do that, he would have to go downstairs and see that demonic blonde.

It was obvious someone, somewhere, hated him.

* * *

"GAH! Suigetsu you asshole!" Karin shrieked in a quiet office after lunch.

The white haired editor flashed the irate redhead a smirk. "I'm _oh so_ sorry, I didn't see you there."

Karin tried to wipe off some of the strawberry smoothie currently staining her lavender and white suit. "My ass!"

"I know, right? How could I have missed that giant thing?" Suigetsu ducked when Karin threw an angry punch.

"Hey! Keep it down out there!" An annoyed pinkette exclaimed, her head poking out of one of the many doors in the giant office. Her jade eyes landed on the pink liquid making its way down Karin's hair and she burst out laughing.

"Shut it, Sakura!" Karin gave her a quick glare before turning her full attention to Suigetsu who still had that shit-eating grin on his face.

She wanted to kick that grin off his face.

… Although in four inch heels, she wasn't sure which one of them could end up hurt more.

"Why couldn't you have spilled this on her?" Karin pointed to the still laughing pinkette who was searching for her phone to get some blackmail. She stopped laughing when she heard Karin. But before she could speak up to defend herself, a blonde walked by.

"Because that might cause her dye to come out."

"Shut up, Ino!" Sakura snapped. "I wish he would've dumped it on you!"

Pale blue eyes narrowed. "What'd you say?"

"Hey!" Karin called, getting the two to face her. "I'm the victim here!"

"Stay out of this, Karin!" Sakura and Ino shot.

The three of them glared at each other before starting to scream at each other.

Suigetsu in the mean time used the perfect distraction to quietly sneak away from the she-devils' wrath.

"Why do you always provoke them?" a voice asked behind Suigetsu who quickly turned around in slight fear.

"Juugo, it's only you." He grinned again. "Oh come on, you're telling me it's not fun to watch?"

The orange-haired editor thought about it. "I guess you're right, but they'll come after you later when they realize you tricked them again."

The two began walking away from the scene of chaos.

Suigetsu shrugged. "Probably, but it's not my fault they're so easy to trick. Anyway, I'm doing this for Sasuke."

"Not for your own amusement?" Juugo looked down at him, knowingly.

Suigetsu chuckled. "You know me all too well. I do it for both, obviously."

"But more for your amusement."

"Of course."

The two walked down a hallway while glancing into the rooms through the glass walls. They saw a blonde, slightly scary female editor speaking with an even scarier redhead. Temari and Gaara Sabaku. They were siblings and Gaara wrote horror stories, go figure.

They noticed an incredibly shy, raven haired female editor talking to a brunette with long hair. Hinata and Neji Hyuuga. Nice people, cousins, and generally very quiet.

The two passed by a sleeping brunette with a spiky ponytail.

Juugo shook his head as he stopped walking and squatted down beside the brunette. "Hey, Shikamaru, wake up."

"Too troublesome. Let me sleep," Shikamaru mumbled sleepily, causing Suigetsu to snicker.

Shikamaru was a politics writer. It was a wonder why he wrote about such a boring topic and managed to stay awake.

After all, nothing ever happens in politics except the occasional scandal involving affairs, who came out of the closet and who works while high, in Suigetsu's opinion.

The white haired editor kept walking, his purple eyes seeking someone out.

"Kiba!" he yelled when he saw the brunette.

The comedy writer jumped about a mile before quickly turning around. "Geez Suigetsu! Stop doing that!" He said, putting one hand over his chest while the other was putting his phone into his pocket.

Suigetsu ignored Kiba's request. The dog-lover just had to get used to it, catching him off-guard was just too fun for Suigetsu to stop now. He raised a brow. "You were texting someone."

"Maybe." Kiba tried to look innocent.

The taller male smirked, crossing his arms over his chest. "Sasuke?"

"Yep."

"How _do_ you keep getting into his conversations?"

Kiba laughed. "One day, I'll pass on all my secrets to you, young one, but not—OW!" Kiba shouted when Suigetsu got him by the ear as he dragged him along to his office. "OW! Alright, alright! I'll tell you!" he gave up.

Suigetsu's smirk widened and he still didn't let go.

From his office, Kakashi sat watching what was going on in the outside world—just outside his office— with a bunch of cameras that showed him everything on a wall of televisions.

To think, he went from having to take care of just the moody Sasuke, to taking care of the whole bunch of insane group since Jiraiya went off to pursue his life long dream of writing the Icha Icha series. Kakashi would've declined but he got a special sneak peak of the first book.

He quickly agreed to take on the position.

Now the question was would Kakashi rather go back to babysitting Sasuke?

… Nahh, he was sure Naruto was handling things well.

* * *

Sasuke hadn't spoken to Naruto since the blonde laughed at him earlier.

_There really isn't much to do here, so I guess I should probably go out and get away from that blonde menace in my living room,_ Sasuke thought, sitting on the edge of his bed with an annoyed look on his face.

He stood up, walked into his closet and pulled a red short sleeve shirt and a black and white hoodie.

As soon as he finished getting dressed, his cell began vibrating.

He planned to ignore it but he found himself checking the caller.

_Suigetsu?_

"Hello?"

"Yo! Sasuke, my main man! I finally got it out of Kiba! I know how he keeps getting into your conversations!" Suigetsu spoke sounding smug.

Sasuke raised a brow. How in the hell had he found out about that? It's only happened a couple of times…

Before Sasuke could say anything, he heard another voice in the background.

"What the hell, dude! Don't tell him! That'll ruin it!"

Kiba.

Suigetsu laughed. "Oh come on, you know I report to Sasuke—"

The voice that interrupted him was loud enough to make Sasuke move the phone away from his ear.

"Hey, dirt bag! Are you talking to Sasuke?"

Karin.

"Yeah, so what? He doesn't wanna talk to you and you're crazy if you think I'll let—"

"Get him!"

Sakura.

"… Oh shit." Suigetsu said.

"I call dibs on Sasuke!"

Ino.

"Hell no! I'm Sasuke's one and only!"

"Yeah right, Sakura! Sasuke's going to be my husband!"

"Argh! You're all wrong!" Suigetsu shouted over them. "_I'm_ the one doing Sasuke!"

The novelist didn't comment as he began to walk out of his room and down the stairs, patiently waiting to hear what would happen next.

"… Let me gut him." Karin demanded angrily.

"I want his head." Sakura stated firmly.

"Get him!" Ino exclaimed.

"Haha! Ooh boy do I get a kick out of this!" Suigetsu said happily with a chuckle as he began to run for his life. "I'll hit you up later, Sasuke!" And just to add the cherry on top of the mess, or to further guarantee his painful death at the hands of Sasuke's fans, he added, "Remember babe, toys make everything more fun. It's my turn with the whips and handcuffs!"

Click.

Everyday, Sasuke hoped his friend would stop being so weird.

Everyday, Suigetsu got worse.

Sasuke pocketed his phone nonchalantly. Suigetsu could say or do whatever he wanted to keep Sasuke's fangirls busy, it wasn't his head on the line.

He looked up and saw a curious Naruto. Curious because he probably heard that last part of the conversation.

Sasuke had the slight urge to clear up the possible misunderstanding, but three things stopped him.

One, he was an Uchiha, he didn't need to explain himself to anyone… Ok, maybe just his parents. But no one else. Alright, his grandparents too… basically any elder Uchiha except his brother.

Two, he told himself he was going to ignore the blonde.

And three, he saw Itachi step out of the kitchen with an amused smirk.

What. The. Hell.

"Itachi."

"Sasuke."

Against his earlier thoughts, Sasuke turned to the blonde. "Why'd you let him in?" He turned back to Itachi. "Who invited you?"

Naruto walked over to him, his hands clasped innocently behind his back. "Well, Kakashi told me to always let people that look like Uchihas in. Especially if they look like you only… scarier."

Itachi eyed Sasuke's state of dress. "Looks like being an author has lowered your standards of dress."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Unlike you, I don't have to wear a suit to look hot."

Itachi was a cardiologist, another reason why the two didn't really get along.

"Of course little brother, whatever you say."

"I'm right. I have the fangirls to prove it." Everywhere he went it was like a mob of fangirls (and fanboys) were out for a piece of him.

"So do I." Itachi crossed his arms over his chest.

Were they really about to get into an argument about their fans?

Yes, yes they were.

"Mine are crazier."

"I have more."

"I have a fanclub."

"As do I."

That was just like him, trying to one-up Sasuke in everything. It was making Sasuke want to get a full bottle of tequila and smash it over his—

The tequila.

"The tequila!"

Itachi blinked at the non-sequitur.

"You asshole! What'd you put in the tequila bottles you've been sending me for Christmas and my birthdays?"

"They're unopened when I give them to you, I can't put something in it," Itachi pointed out.

"Then what's in it?"

"… Tequila? If you want the list of ingredients—"

Sasuke glared at him. "Argh! Get out of my house!"

"Why? Expecting," he glanced at the still curious Naruto then back at Sasuke, "_more_ company?"

_Ohhh… He heard the conversation… Suigetsu, you're a dead man._

"Out!" Sasuke pointed towards his door and Itachi headed towards the front door.

"Whatever you say," he opened the door and looked back at the younger Uchiha. "Have fun with those whips."

"OUT!"

Itachi walked out and closed the door before Sasuke could get a chance to throw something at him with that deadly aim of his.

Sasuke looked back at Naruto having completely forgotten him earlier. He gave him a look that said, "Don't _ever_ let that man into my house again," and he turned around and walked out the door.

…

He wasn't all that surprised when Naruto followed him out.

Sasuke really had no clear destination in mind, he just wanted to get out of the house for a bit.

They had reached the park in complete silence. The writer was surprised at least, he expected Naruto to be talking him into a migraine by now, but instead, everytime Sasuke cast a glance at him, the blonde had either a smile or a faraway look on his face.

Although he was also expecting Naruto to break the silence, which he did.

"Hey Sasuke, want to hear a story?" he caught up to him, having usually been a couple steps behind him. Naruto looked content.

But that didn't mean Sasuke was going to talk to him. He already broke that rule a little while back when Itachi had infected—er… came over. Naruto grinned.

"I'll take your silence as a yes."

Their pace slowed by a bit and Naruto began.

"Once, there was a kid who was a big dreamer. At night, in the day, he was always lost in his fantasies. He was always aware that he was different. Beyond the strange personality to most, beyond his appearance that would make him stand out in crowds. He knew his dreams were realistic. Very realistic, in fact. That didn't stop him from dreaming though. Then one day, he started having certain dreams, with a certain… interesting person in them. Since he figured everything was just a dream, he played along with it.

"A couple days later, he realized that his dreams actually led him to that certain someone who had been starring in his dreams in real life. But the other person had no idea what was going on. Yet that didn't deter him. He was determined to win this interesting person over, and was okay with waiting it all out.

"So what do you think?" Sapphire eyes looked excited at him, hoping for a positive response.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and picked up his pace again. He maybe had a million things he could say about that so called story Naruto just babbled on about, but without looking at him, he replied, "You need to work on your ending."

Naruto smiled, a smile that Sasuke never saw that seemed to be hiding a lot more than it led on. "Trust me, I am."

The novelist gave a quiet sigh. He was about to speak up again when Naruto glanced at his watch and interrupted.

"Crap, I have to go, I'm sorry Sasuke, but I have to be somewhere. I promise I'll help you as much as I can tomorrow, I'm sorry I wasn't any help today." Without thinking, or at least Sasuke assumed, Naruto stopped in front of him and gave him a quick hug. "Bye!" He waved to him and ran off, disappearing from sight in a matter of moments.

Sasuke was left… dumbfounded.

He shook his head and looked up as he walked, noticing it had gotten a little darker out.

Damn, there went another day.

A small chilly breeze swept past him and he placed his hands into his hoodie pocket.

"What the…?"

He felt something in his pocket that hadn't been there before. He pulled it out.

An ace of spades.

Raising a brow, he turned it over… and saw a couple sentence written in black.

Onyx orbs scanned over the writing, not able to recognize whose it was.

_An idea…?_

Sasuke didn't even realize he had reached his house until he found himself unlocking the front door.

He barely made sure to close and lock the door before he raced up the stairs and turned on his laptop.

His fingers were itching to type, his mind allowing his thoughts to roam free at whatever speed they wished. He sat down and opened a blank document, the same one that had been mocking him before.

His fingers nearly flew across the keyboard as they struggled slightly to keep up with his thoughts.

A quick glance at the time on his laptop. Six-thirty p.m.

He never realized how much he had missed being able to make something out of nothing, and create a romance story.

Which was ironic considering he didn't like to date girls (they were very annoying sometimes) and guys had never been an option.

He couldn't believe how much could pop up from just a couple sentence on the back of a playing card that he didn't even know he had.

Any thought of anything not related to the current story in his head were immediately kicked out of his mind to make room for the ideas spawning in his head.

Oh yes, Sasuke Uchiha the novelist was back.

* * *

At about one in the morning, a familiar blonde dropped by his house.

He stood under the threshold of the room Sasuke was in, just watching the raven.

It amazed him to see that Sasuke didn't even notice him because he was so engrossed with whatever he was typing out.

He smiled when Sasuke turned his head to the side a bit to sneeze, revealing that he was wearing a pair of thin-rimmed black glasses.

He didn't know Sasuke wore glasses.

Not wanting to disturb him, the blonde muse quietly slipped away, the Uchiha never noticing him.

* * *

It was six-fifteen in the morning when Sasuke decided to take a small break. He pushed his chair back to get away from the laptop. He moved his fingers around and moved his wrists in circular motions, hoping they weren't going to hurt him too much later, he wasn't _that_ rusty.

Although typing for nearly twelve hours straight (with five minute long breaks every two hours; good thing his laptop was plugged in) couldn't leave his hands feeling well later, he didn't mind. At least he was getting somewhere now.

He stood up and stretched a bit, seeing that he hadn't even bothered to take off his hoodie before he started typing.

After taking said hoodie off, he walked out of his room and made his way into the kitchen.

He was _starving._

Coffee for breakfast (or lunch) and nothing else for the rest of the day plus pulling an all-nighter had left him very hungry.

When he opened his fridge, his eyes landed on the breakfast Naruto had made for him yesterday.

Not wanting to let food go to waste (he just didn't want to go through the wait to cook something), he heated it up and thought about making some more coffee.

At the last moment and he didn't know why, but instead of getting a coffee mug, he reached for a shot glass and opened another tequila bottle.

He ate his food and took a shot before getting another one and heading back to his room.

When he got there, he was confused when he saw the card, that ace of spades that had given him inspiration yesterday, was gone.

_What the hell? I left it right by my laptop… _He set the shot glass down beside his laptop and searched around the area.

Nothing.

_Could I have imagined the whole thing?_ He quickly looked back at his laptop. He already had almost a hundred pages typed up.

_It wasn't a dream… So where did that card go?_

He shook his head. Maybe he _had_ imagined that part.

Oh well.

Sasuke downed the shot, ignoring the fact that he forgot a chaser again and placed his hands over the keyboard. He stopped.

An eyebrow raised, he looked around, expecting something.

Not something, someone.

He was expecting either the blonde muse or Naruto to pop out of nowhere and start up with the smiles and secrets.

Nothing.

Two hours later, Sasuke found himself yawning and unable to keep his eyes open. Making sure everything was saved, the raven stood up and made his way to the bed.

Normally he would never do this, but a quick nap wouldn't hurt.

As soon as he laid down he felt himself begin to enter the land of the unfamiliar in his mind.

Just before he surrendered to a dream, he had a thought.

The world of dreams and this kid Naruto was telling him about, the situation seemed familiar to him, but he didn't know how.

He wasn't able to make a connection, for he quickly fell asleep and all previous trains of thought disappeared into the darkness of his mind.

* * *

**Monkey: So... can anyone figure out what's going on? XD **

**I just wanted Itachi to briefly show up in this chapter, but don't worry, he'll be back soon ;D**

**Man, I want winter break to come soon TT_TT Then at least I'll be able to update a lot xD**

**Well I'm sorry if the chapter left you disappointed or confused, I'll try to make up for it in the next chapter :D **

**Hmmm at the rate this story is going, I'm seeing about ten or so chapters to this story... maybe more haha.**

**Anyway, thank you for reading! See you guys later! :DD**


	6. Questions but No Answers

**Monkey: Uhmm... Hiiii... It's been a while again, hasn't it? o.o; Sorry for the long wait Dx **

**I have to stop taking so long when updating stories X.x;**

**Well let's see... Oh! I don't know when spring break is coming over here, but whenever it is, I'll definitely update this again by then! XD**

**Also, sorry if the chapter seems a bit... off. I don't know, it might have something to do with how I had half the chapter done weeks ago, but I didn't finish it till today, I might've missed some things or made things sound a bit different, since I didn't actually read over it before I continued, and I never go back and edit any of my chapters, by then I just don't have the will power to do that. n.n;;**

**Well, any mistakes aside, enjoy!**

* * *

The next couple of days were a blur for Sasuke. He didn't see his muse or Naruto ever since he got the idea for his story which was finally completed.

He also hadn't gotten any calls from Kakashi, but he saw that as a plus so he wasn't complaining.

Sasuke raked a hand through his dark locks and sighed, both in relief and exhaustion. He was finished. He was finally finished with his story, and not a moment too soon.

Today was his deadline.

_Talk about a close call…_

He clicked the print button and stood up to stretch as the pages came out of the printer beside his laptop. He clasped his hands together in front of him and brought them up over his head, then brought them behind his back.

No one ever said sitting in front of a computer for hours on end with a deadline charging toward them was easy, nor good for someone. Talk about a sedentary lifestyle.

Any other time he would've had Kakashi come by the day of his deadline and pester him until he finally gave him the finished product, even if he had to force Sasuke to give it to him at gunpoint. It had happened, several times already. This time however, Kakashi was no longer his editor.

And he didn't have Naruto's number.

"Perfect," he muttered. This just meant that he was going to have to get out of his house for once and stop playing the part of a hermit Kakashi always said he was.

He was _not_ a hermit. He was just worried about being attacked the moment he set foot outside of his house. Perfectly rational reason.

Sasuke collected all the papers once the printer was done and made sure to do a quick check to see that all the pages were in place. He crouched down in front of one of the drawers in his desk and opened the one on the bottom, looking around for a bit before he found what he wanted.

He placed the story in a manila envelope and tossed it lazily on top of his desk.

Against his will, he yawned and made his way to the bathroom to take a shower.

It looks like he was going to have to pay the office of idiots a visit.

* * *

The raven put on a black beanie with gray swirls to hide that unmistakable hair of his. He found a pair of shades to wear and hoped that would be enough to keep attention from being drawn to him.

Damn, he really didn't want to do this…

But he knew he had to.

He checked his reflection in the bathroom before nodding accordingly. He looked presentable and it wasn't easy to tell it was him. He walked out of the bathroom and walked over to his room, to get his cell, keys and his wallet before putting them in his jeans.

Finally a white long sleeved shirt with a black t-shirt on top and he was ready to go.

He wouldn't dare wear a suit to this building, the last time he did, he lost most of it in the crowd of fangirls, and it was an expensive suit too.

It had nothing to do with the fact that every time he wore a suit he was reminded of Itachi.

Nope, that definitely wasn't the reason.

He decided to walk to the office. He had a car, but it would draw way too much attention to himself, and he didn't want there to be a chance that he might accidentally run over a fangirl, like he almost did a couple years ago…

But that was a story for another time.

He grabbed the envelope, walked down the stairs and out the door. As soon as he locked the door behind him, he remembered that he hadn't eaten any breakfast.

_Oh well, I'll catch some later._

His disguise might've sounded like total crap, but it actually worked. It was ridiculous though, he was treated like a freaking celebrity! There was a _reason _he became a novelist!

Well, there were a lot of reasons for that one, but one of them was that he didn't want fans practically throwing themselves at him everywhere he went. Yet somehow, they did just that.

Who does that to an author?

An actor yes, a singer of course, a politician… sure, but a writer?

Then again, he really shouldn't complain, it just meant that he was a good writer and a lot of people bought his books.

It had nothing to do with his looks.

Sasuke shook his head.

It probably had everything to do with his looks, but that wouldn't stop him. He was an Uchiha. He was stubborn. And he would be damned if he admitted that his looks were the only trait of his worthy of attention and fans.

… Ok so it was the main trait, but still.

_Argh… I feel like I'm arguing with myself and losing._

He probably was, he was a hard person to beat when arguing. Plus, most writers were like that, after all, didn't they have to come up with all the characters in their stories? All of their reactions and actions, whether they live or die?

A writer has to put themselves in the position of every character they create to better understand them, and for the story to flow. If they didn't, the story would confuse the reader, and it would simply suck.

At least, that's what Sasuke always thought.

He was so caught up in his internal debate that he didn't even realize he was in front of the cursed building some time later until his feet stopped.

He guessed he was just so used to coming to this exact building, always walking after that incident a couple years back, that now his legs knew where to go and he didn't have to worry about anything.

He was lucky he didn't get hit by a car while he blindly crossed the streets though.

With a quick sigh, he walked up the concrete steps that led to the building and pulled the glass door open, making his way inside.

As soon as he stepped in, lots of eyes looked in his direction. He stayed very calm and walked with a confident step (like always, no matter the situation… his muse excluded), knowing that one false move and his cover would be blown.

There was a reason he never liked coming here.

Perfect, he could see the stairway… just a little further… a little more… a little more…

"Yo! Sasuke!"

Hello Suigetsu, goodbye disguise.

It took just those two words for all hell to break loose. Almost like a switch, the girls (and some guys) snapped their heads in his direction, a gleam in their eyes.

"SASUKE!" His fans yelled out.

With a small nod, Sasuke took in a deep breath and ran for the stairs that Suigetsu was typically in front of.

"Hey Sasuke, what's—" Suigetsu was cut off when Sasuke reached out to him, pulled him forward by the shirt and literally threw him at his fans.

Hey, he caused it, who better than to use as fresh meat so he can get away?

He continued running, even after hearing Suigetsu's curses and screams, and ran past Kiba.

Nothing against the dog lover, but he threw him to the half of his fans who had followed him too.

"AHHH!" Kiba yelled in shock and fear. It wasn't every day he met up close and personal so many rabid… people.

He had his own fanbase of course, but it didn't compare to Sasuke.

If he wasn't so scared that he'd meet his maker for preventing them from getting to the raven in question, he would curse that lucky bastard for having this many adoring fans.

Thankfully, Sasuke made it up the stairs in one piece (_why_ did Kakashi's office have to be so far up the damn building?) and breathing hard, though he lost his hat somewhere along the way. He couldn't take any chances with his fans, the faster he got out of there, the better. Hell, if he went back for his hat, there might not _be_ any of it left once the fangirls knew who it belonged to.

He didn't see the point of seeing something from their idol and then ripping it to shreds.

But whatever, his fans could do as they pleased, just not with him.

What surprised him was that both Suigetsu and Kiba appeared right after him, nearly screaming bloody murder.

"See look at that! I drive the girls crazy!" Suigetsu said with a smug look. He ignored the fact that there were even some guys in that crowd chasing them, though they were pretty sure they lost the rabid fans three floors down.

"No, Sasuke drives them crazy. You bring forth their wrath." Kiba stated, pausing to take a breath in between every other word. The look on his face clearly reminded Suigetsu of the little murder attempt Karin, Ino and Sakura had done with him some time back.

"This is why I don't come here," Sasuke spoke at last, easily composing himself in front of the two. They were standing right in front of a big office that had no windows to peer into.

Kakashi's office.

He was there because of two things. One, he knew this was where he was supposed to go whenever his fans chased him, at least then they could mess up an office and Sasuke wouldn't have to get yelled at for it later. And two, he had no idea where Naruto's office was. Did the blonde even have an office here?

"I thought you didn't come because of him?" Suigetsu pointed at Kiba, curiously staring at Sasuke.

"Hey!" Kiba called out indignantly. He was standing right there!

"It's everyone really. Every person in here is more annoying than the last." Sasuke closed his eyes and let out a tired sigh. Things just never changed around there.

He turned on his heel and brought a hand up to quietly knock on the thick wooden door in front of him.

Knock Knock

…

…

…

Knock Knock

…

…

…

Kiba and Suigetsu were amazed at the patience Sasuke was—

"Kakashi! Open your goddamn door! I know you have cameras everywhere, so I know _you know I'm here_! If you really don't want my story, I'll leave!" He exclaimed as he pounded on the door.

The other two with him turned to look at each other and laugh nervously. Ah, there was the Sasuke they knew.

"I'll kick your door down!" He knew Kakashi wouldn't take him lightly, he'd done it before, three times.

Then again, every repair cost was pulled out of his paycheck, but it was worth it.

The irritated raven raked his hand through his hair and brought his arm back to pound on the door again.

But before he could, the ground gave way under him.

"Damn you Kakashi!" Sasuke's yell echoed before the trap door closed, leaving Kiba and Suigetsu to blink and stare in shock at the ground where Sasuke once stood.

… Had that always been there?

Sasuke landed on a cushioned surface. He leaned back in the comfortable seat. He took off his shades and set them on the desk in front of him. "I hate you."

The masked man in front of him smirked behind his mask.

Sasuke threw the envelope onto Kakashi's desk.

"I'm not your editor," the silver haired man pointed out, keeping his amused eyes trained on Sasuke. The author rolled his eyes.

"I can't find mine."

"Have you tried calling him?"

"…"

"I see you haven't even bothered to get his number." Kakashi picked up the envelope with the story in it. "Do you even know his name?"

"Naruto Uzumaki." It was hard to forget a name like that.

Kakashi's smirk widened. Sasuke couldn't really tell, but he assumed that happened. Sasuke's response had been instant.

The raven noticed this and scowled.

"Well, I'll have Naruto look over these when he gets better and he'll—"

"Gets better? He's sick?"

"Hm. It looks like Naruto was a good influence on you, you're actually starting to care already." The editor in chief leaned forward in his seat, causing Sasuke to glare at him.

"Go rot in hell."

"I can see the ice around your heart is starting to melt."

_Annoying little…_

The door suddenly slamming open interrupted his thoughts. Kakashi glanced to the side of Sasuke while the raven casually turned back.

Kiba and Suigetsu had burst through the doors looking terrified.

They were surprised for a second however, when they saw Sasuke seated in front of Kakashi. Hadn't the trapdoor led _down_…?

"S-Sasuke! Your fans are insane!" Kiba yelled.

"Yeah, no shit." Suigetsu replied for the raven with a roll of his eyes. Really, did he think they would run away screaming from anyone else?

Sasuke ignored them and turned back to Kakashi. "I have no heart."

"Yes of course. Uchihas are born without one and must be taught to love when some stranger walks into their lives and takes their complete attention."

Sasuke frowned. _That sounds like me and… my muse?_ He realized what he was saying and scowled. _That is a complete lie._

Kakashi was smiling at him, Sasuke could _feel_ it.

"Sounds like you've dealt with an Uchiha before," Suigetsu commented. He sighed dramatically. "It took Sasuke _forever_ before he finally admitted to loving me."

Kakashi pretended not to see the book Sasuke slammed in Suigetsu's face with those lightning fast reflexes of his. The editor that got hit howled out in pain.

Kiba cracked up.

"Funny, I thought you'd be more into blondes." Kakashi commented coolly, amused at seeing Sasuke's attention snap back to him, eyes narrowed.

_He knows…_ Sasuke thought, his hands gripping the armrests of his chair tightly.

Kakashi idly noticed Sasuke's knuckles turn white, but otherwise unnoticeable against his pale skin. _Oh I know._

"Blondes?" Kiba echoed, sounding shocked.

Suigetsu's jaw dropped. "You like Ino?"

Sasuke's eyes blinked in confusion and he turned his head slowly to face them. "What?"

"Well what other blondes—" Kiba interrupted Suigetsu.

"There's Temari—" Suigetsu cut Kiba off.

"But she's with Shikamaru—" the two continued guessing and Sasuke turned once again to Kakashi who was just watching the scene go down like a movie.

"You haven't told them about Naruto." It wasn't a question. Sasuke kept his voice low so the two morons bickering behind him wouldn't hear, but his voice promised danger.

Kakashi chuckled.

Sasuke nearly growled.

The young Uchiha stood up to leave but paused and looked at the silverette.

"I want his address."

"Only if you ask nicely."

Sasuke leaned forward and pounded on the large desk, startling Suigetsu and Kiba. They paled slightly when they saw Sasuke leave dents in the desk.

"I'll tear your organs out and sell them on the black market while I watch you slowly die by hanging you upside down so your blood can flow freely down the drain."

Kakashi thought about it. "Close enough. I'll text you the information you want." He smiled under his mask.

Kiba and Suigetsu made a mental note never to anger an Uchiha, especially Sasuke.

Who knew how many people they had connections with?

Sasuke walked out of the office then remembered something.

Suigetsu and Kiba each let out an unmanly yelp when they felt the back of their shirts being pulled by the temperamental Uchiha.

A look of horror spread across their faces as they were dragged out of there, Kakashi happily waving at them, knowing what Sasuke was going to do.

He needed some bait to throw at the dogs, didn't he?

As soon as Sasuke stalled his fans with the two, he made like a ninja and quickly got out of the building.

Once he was at a safe distance away, his phone started vibrating.

* * *

To: Sasuke

I've attached Naruto's address to this text. Have fun taking care of the blonde. Good way to repay the favor, isn't it? :P

By the way, I know my contact name on your phone is Idiot Editor. Try being a little more original. Like that threat of yours, I'm sure Itachi used it on me some years back, only it was scarier when he said it. :D

Oh, and you left your shades here. I'm going to sell them on eBay and become a millionaire. xD

From: Idiot Editor

* * *

Sasuke could feel his cell being to crack in his hand.

* * *

To: *************** Kakashi

Don't expect me to say thanks.

What favor?

You stalker.

When the hell did you have contact with my brother?

… There's no way you'll become a millionaire with my glasses alone.

From: Sasuke

* * *

To: Sasu-chan

I would be scared if you did show gratitude. :P

Wouldn't you like to know? ;D

Hehe.

Oh, you'd be surprised.

At least you changed my name to something original. XP Wanna bet? I'm currently at 7 million. :3

From: Kakashi

* * *

To: *************** Kakashi

… You won't wake tomorrow.

From: Sasuke

* * *

Sasuke walked back to his house to get his car. The only reason he didn't drive to Kakashi's office was because his car was way too noticeable by his fan girls.

Damn stalkerish fangirls from hell.

Though he really should be cursing his good looks.

…

He would never curse his sweet mother!

Although, he would always curse Itachi for constantly teasing him when they were younger, saying Sasuke "looked girly."

Sasuke got into his black convertible, muttering a million curses about Itachi.

Sometimes he wished he was an only child.

But then he wouldn't be who he was.

_Ah, damn you Itachi, you influenced me._

He finally reached Naruto's house. He parked in the driveway, cringed slightly when he slammed the door shut and walked out towards the front door.

_Great, I'm here and I don't even know why._

The raven stood in front of the door, hand raised.

If Naruto answered, what would he say?

'Naruto, I came to find out why your ass isn't at work.'

… Too harsh.

'Hey, I heard you were sick and came to keep you company.'

… … Too nice.

_So what am I doing here?_

Before he realized it, he rang the doorbell.

He needed to start paying attention to what he was doing.

_Maybe I should go…_

He turned on his heels and took a step when he heard the door begin to open. He quickly turned back.

"S-Sasuke?" Naruto asked, surprised.

The Uchiha got a good look at Naruto.

Puffy, tearing eyes, red tipped nose, pink cheeks. He kept sniffling, his blonde hair matted down on his forehead with sweat. Sasuke noticed that the blonde's voice was a little raspy. Naruto was just wearing a plain white t-shirt with dark orange sweatpants.

"Naruto…"

The blonde sneezed.

"… Bless you."

Well that was one thing he could say.

"Thanks." Naruto stepped back to let Sasuke in.

Sasuke hesitated for a moment, then walked in.

"What are you sniff doing here?" Naruto pulled out a tissue from his pocket and held it over his nose. "How did you find out where I live?"

"Kakashi told me you were sick."

Naruto blew his nose and nodded. "I caught a bad cold. Think I have a fever too. Sorry I haven't come by to help you, I didn't want you to get sick too. And I forgot to get your number from Kakashi."

Sasuke shook his head. "Don't worry about it." He saw Naruto walk into the bathroom and came back out seconds later with a handful of tissues. "How did you get sick?"

The blonde rubbed his throat a bit, coughing. "Not sure, think I stayed out too long the other day."

_Other day? Does he mean when we went out? But he left early…_

The writer was about to question this when Naruto spoke again.

"How's your story?"

"Finished."

Sapphire eyes went wide. "Really?"

A nod. "I got an idea the last time I saw you and I made a full story."

The blonde coughed. "I'll look at it later."

"That's alright, I gave it to Kakashi to look over. I haven't seen you and I didn't know how to contact you, so I figured I could throw it at Kakashi again." Naruto chuckled lightly. He walked up the stairs, pausing to look back at the raven. "Coming?"

Feeling a bit awkward, Sasuke followed him. He never went into someone else's house that was outside his family. Even to Itachi's house, he never set foot in. Well, not after that one incident…

He needed to start watching out for these _incidents_.

Anyway, he didn't feel too comfortable "invading" someone's home.

He looked around the walls and saw lots of pictures, filled with three very happy people, mostly.

The red haired woman with emerald eyes in the pictures was beautiful, while the man in the pictures looked just like a slightly older version of Naruto.

"Your family, I take it?" Sasuke nearly cursed. It wasn't like him to ask about personal things, hell, he didn't even like talking on a daily basis.

Naruto nodded as they walked up the stairs. "Yeah. I haven't seen them in a while," he coughed.

"You all look very happy." He nearly winced. What was with this small talk?

"We are generally a happy-go-lucky family."

"I'm not surprised."

Naruto paused and looked back at him, smiling.

Sasuke let his lips twitch slightly to show his half-assed smile.

For Naruto, it was more than enough.

They reached Naruto's room and Sasuke was hesitant to go in.

"Come in, please excuse the mess though."

Sasuke felt it a huge invasion of privacy, but what could he really do when he was in his editor's house?

… Wow, that was something he never thought would happen.

_Ever since a certain blonde walked into my life, I've been doing a lot of things I thought I would never do._

… … _I hope that doesn't continue._

He walked in and looked around.

Apparently his editor had been laying on the bed, surrounded by boxes of tissues, a half full cup of ramen and had some cartoons on.

"You heard me from in here?"

The TV was a little on the loud side.

The blonde turned it off and grinned. "Not really, I heard a car door slam from my driveway though."

Sasuke frowned when his eyes settled on the ramen. "You're sick and you're eating ramen? That stuff isn't good for you on a normal day, it isn't good for you now." _Wait, am I starting to care? That's it, being around Naruto is bad for me._

His editor sneezed twice and coughed. "I like ramen. Besides," he blew his nose, "I don't really have the strength to make something more than that…"

Sasuke nodded as the other went to lay down on the bed and toss his tissue into the trash can next to the bed. "Then I'll make you something." _To repay the favor…_

_Damn you Kakashi. Making me think that my muse and Naruto are one and the same…_

Naruto held another tissue to his nose. "That's ok Sasuke, I wouldn't want to bother you, I'm good with ramen."

"But I'm not. I insist."

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

An Uchiha was… _insisting_?

His ancestors must be planning his murder at this very second. His parents probably had some Uchiha-sense, knew what happened and were joining in.

Sapphire eyes widened a bit, in surprise.

Sasuke didn't blame him, he shocked himself too.

Naruto smiled. "You're not as bad as Kakashi made it seem."

The writer rolled his eyes. "Kakashi's a dead man."

Naruto chuckled and coughed. "I'll help you." He made to get out of bed, but Sasuke shook his head and stopped him.

"Rest. I'll see what I can make." He paused and looked to his side. "That is of course, if you trust me to be alone in your kitchen."

Despite being sick, Naruto couldn't help the grin on his face. "Completely."

Sasuke blinked, then snapped out of it.

For a moment there…

_Thank God no one else is around, otherwise my reputation would be shot to hell… Again. _

Sasuke walked out of the room and down the stairs, thinking about what had been going on around him lately.

It was like he was on autopilot, just making some chicken soup, while his mind was focused elsewhere. He didn't even know where anything was, yet he was there, somehow making food for someone that looked just like his insanity embodied.

Some things just weren't adding up.

Why did it seem like Suigetsu and Kiba had no idea who Naruto was?

Besides the promotion, was there another reason as to why Kakashi gave Naruto of all people the job as Sasuke's editor?

Then there was that muse of his, that was earlier driving him insane, and yet now, he hadn't seen him since…

… Since about the time when Naruto should've caught the cold.

Why did it seem like Kakashi knew a lot more than he was letting on then, about his new editor?

It's not like secrets were anything new coming from the pervert, but Sasuke hated to be out of the loop, especially when it involved him.

After a while, he finished making the soup as he came up with more questions and no answers. He went back up to Naruto's room to tell him the food was ready, but he saw that the blonde was fast asleep, still clutching to a handful of tissues.

A small smile graced the Uchiha's face as he leaned against the threshold of the door, crossing his arms over his chest. He didn't know why, but he found it comforting just to be there, in that room, with that silence broken only by the soft snores Naruto gave due to his stuffy nose.

Sasuke chuckled at himself, raking a hand through his blue black hair. _Look at you, Sasuke, you've become… Human._

All joking aside, he had noticed that he begun to act differently as of late.

All starting with a certain blonde haired person that popped into his life.

_I wonder if Naruto has any tequila around here._

Sasuke quickly rid himself of that thought. That's probably why he was going crazy and constantly seeing blondes, because he was starting to become an alcoholic.

Ok, maybe an alcoholic was pushing it, but he seemed to have a thing for tequila.

Maybe it was because the first time around, it brought him a muse.

_Whatever, it's not like I liked it. I swear I thought I was going insane. Hell, I must be, I'm talking to myself_.

He gave a quiet sigh and turned his attention back to the sleeping editor. "You look so much like him, I wonder why…" he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper so as not to wake the sick blonde.

The author closed his eyes, thinking that maybe he should go back home now, since he didn't want to further disturb his editor, he needed his rest.

Not to mention, Sasuke needed to eat something, since he hadn't eaten all day yet.

Before he opened his eyes, he felt something odd.

He was being watched.

By Naruto? But he was sleeping, wasn't he?

Ebony eyes opened and he saw that Naruto was still sound asleep on the bed.

_Then who…?_

"I have a secret."

Sasuke furrowed his brows together.

That was definitely Naruto's voice, but his mouth hadn't moved.

_Alright then, I'm definitely going crazy. I don't even have to be in my own house to experience insanity. _

Oh if Itachi ever found out… Yeah, that would be an interesting day.

Or worse, if Kakashi found out.

Then again, that ex-editor of his probably already knew, since he always seemed to know everything.

"Sasuke, turn around."

That voice, that whisper in his ear made a small shiver run down his spine.

He turned around.

"… Naruto…?"

* * *

**Monkey: So what do you guys think? xD What do you guys think just happened/will happen? owo**

**No one kill me for the cliffhanger! X_x**

**Oh, and even though it seems like it, this story is no where near its ending, I honestly don't even know when or how it'll end, but I know it's not coming with the next chapter XD**

**Well I'll see you guys later! :3**


	7. Way Too Many Drinks

**Monkey: ... I am so sorry for leaving this story for so long. ._.;**

**I guess I just got caught up with other things, and I didn't get a chance to upload anything during spring break, I'm sorry. Now that it's summertime, I'll hopefully be able to update, but I'm fresh out of ideas after trying to force this chapter out. That's why it may seem a bit... off? I hope it's alright n.n;**

**I hope this fanfic still has readers...**

**Please enjoy.**

* * *

"Sasuke?"

Silence.

"Sasuke?"

Ebony eyes snapped open and the raven felt the back of his head hit something. "Ouch. What the…?"

The blonde looked at him curiously. Sasuke noticed he was kneeling down in front of him.

He also noticed that he was against the wall, one of his legs stretched out while the other was brought close to his chest. His hands were resting in his lap.

"You fell asleep," Naruto told him, his voice not as raspy as before.

"I what?"

_Didn't he… Wasn't he…_

_Fuck, I'm losing my mind._

Naruto frowned. "Are you okay?" Sasuke moved his hands onto the ground and stood up. "I have to go." He looked down.

Naruto actually looked better than the last time he saw him.

As if reading his mind, his editor smiled. "Thank you very much for the soup, I feel a lot better already."

He already ate? "How long was I out?"

Naruto thought for a bit. "Uhmmm… well you were already asleep when I woke up… Oh the food was still hot so, a couple hours I think?" He smiled sheepishly. "When I woke up, I forgot you were here and I kinda tripped over you, but you didn't wake up. I'm sorry."

_I fell asleep?_

_But how?_

_When?_

Sasuke shook his head of those thoughts and looked into sapphire eyes. "It's fine. I should get going now."

Naruto pouted before a smile appeared on his face. "I'll give you my number, so we can stay in contact if you need me."

"Sure." Sasuke gave him his cell and waited patiently for the blonde to put in his information. On any other occasion, he would let it snow in Hell before he allowed someone to give him their number, as _if_ he would ever call them! But he figured this was an exception, he might actually need to talk to his editor sometime.

Though he made it a habit to avoid Kakashi for the longest possible time when he used to be his editor, so maybe that would happen with Naruto too.

Naruto gave him his phone back and Sasuke didn't know what to say.

"… Feel better."

He didn't wait for an answer and walked quickly out of the room.

He didn't realize until later that Naruto never even asked for his number in return.

"Thank you Sasuke!"

The raven paused for a fraction of a second before continuing out of his house.

_Damn writer's block.. And tequila for starting this mess._

Sasuke slammed the door to his car and just sat there, thinking.

_I heard a voice, it sounded like Naruto's, I turned around and I saw…_

_I saw…_

Sasuke tightened his grip around his keys.

He didn't remember.

Whatever happened, he fell asleep and forgot everything.

… Or maybe none of it ever happened?

The author practically peeled out of the driveway as his thoughts went a mile a minute.

He blinked out of his reverie in time to stop himself from crashing into a car.

After receiving the finger, Sasuke scowled.

_I have to cut ties with Naruto for a while. I'm just not myself these days…_

He was after all, very stressed for once at having to finish that book of his as soon as he could and pretty much all was last minute.

Yeah, that was it. Everything was all stress.

Stress and tequila-induced hallucinations could account for everything.

Luckily, he had just finished his book and could finally get a break.

He had just gotten home when he felt his phone vibrate.

It was a text. From Kakashi.

Telling him his next deadline, less than two months away.

He would get right to that.

But first thing's first, time to get a new phone since this one broke.

* * *

After Naruto heard his front door close, he let out a small sigh of relief.

He sneezed.

_Ack, being sick sucks_, he thought with a grimace as he blew his nose.

It seems Sasuke nearly found out…

* * *

_I should quit being an author, _Sasuke though, staring at a blank document in front of him, _because obviously this is getting me nowhere._

Once was understandable, every author goes through writer's block at some point, but twice? No. he couldn't make a habit out of this, otherwise he would ruin himself.

He stood up and began to walk around the house, wondering if he should go to _that_ room to get some inspiration.

_He_ had been in there, back when he had gotten sick that one time.

The pills…

Sasuke reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He stopped and stared at it.

They hadn't talked in a few days, since Sasuke left his house.

_I need… _Sasuke raked his other hand through his hair, putting his cell back. He couldn't call Naruto and ask if he had been in his house and left some pills there, it was crazy! He had no proof! And although he would never admit it out loud, he didn't _want_ to find proof. Not now at least.

He walked away from that room and stopped by at his kitchen, his eyes falling on something.

He still had some tequila.

Sasuke shook his head and pulled out his phone again before scrolling through his contacts and making a call.

"… I need to talk to you."

* * *

"I never thought you would call me," Kakashi greeted as Sasuke sat at the table, taking a seat across from him.

The raven didn't bother with a disguise, he wasn't in the mood to deal with all that today.

"Believe me, I didn't either."

It was always either (grudgingly) talking through text or Kakashi would be the one to call him, while Sasuke always ignored him.

Before either could say anything, a young waitress came by and asked for their orders, blushing the whole time. It wasn't everyday two incredibly hot men like them came to their café. She assumed the silverette was also hot, even with the mask, apparently it just added to his mystery.

She also swore she saw the raven before, or at least recognized him from somewhere, but for the life of her, she couldn't place him.

Sasuke ordered their strongest coffee and Kakashi ordered a slice of cheesecake.

After she left and Sasuke was sure she wouldn't come back suddenly knowing him, or other random fans wouldn't pop out of no where (his paranoia was just and came with his good looks), he turned to look straight at Kakashi. "Naruto."

"Kakashi," he corrected cheekily.

Sasuke scowled. "Why did you hire him?"

"Because I wanted someone to torture you endlessly."

Sasuke blinked.

Kakashi chuckled. "I'm kidding. Anyway, why not? He applied for the job and got it." He smiled behind the mask.

"He wanted to be my editor?" Sasuke didn't believe that, there was just no way that kind of thing was just a coincidence, not with the way his luck had been going recently.

"No, but he applied to be an editor and since I was moving up the ladder, I figured what the hell, and I gave him my job."

Black eyes narrowed. "That's it? There's nothing special about him?"

Kakashi raised a brow, amused. He always knew Uchihas were specially fun to mess with, no matter how dangerous/evil/psychotic they may seem to be at first. "Oh? Special? Why, do you think he's special?"

Sasuke's eyes widened a fraction before avoiding his gaze with a frown. "Of course not. But if he's new, why did you make him _my_ editor? You know how much of a hassle I am, I'm probably your hardest author to deal with in the building," Sasuke had no problem admitting that, "so why not someone else?"

"If you wanted someone else—"

"No! Damn it Kakashi." Sasuke was getting frustrated. This is why he never spoke to the older man unless it was absolutely necessary. But unfortunately, he didn't really have that many friends (Suigetsu was still a little miffed about becoming fresh meat for his fan girls) and there wasn't a chance in hell he would go to his brother for advice. Worrying his parents was the last thing he wanted to do.

The older man chuckled and refrained himself from pointing out how Sasuke was acting like a confused child. _Yeah, that'll go well. I say that and I won't walk again. _"He seemed perfect for the job at the interview, so I hired him."

"He seemed perfect?"

The waitress came back (and luckily still didn't recognize Sasuke) and brought them their orders, then left again.

"He's your opposite. You're night, he's day. You're evil, scary and mysterious and he's nice, bubbly and outgoing."

Kakashi smirked when Sasuke seemed to be thinking about that as he blankly stared into the coffee. "Would you prefer some tequila?"

Sasuke, shocked for only a second, glared up at Kakashi who wasn't fazed. "_What_?"

He shrugged. "Figured that was your poison. Was I wrong? Do you prefer something else? Vodka?"

"Neither." And with that, Sasuke downed most of the coffee in one go, the dark liquid bitter and burning his throat.

He stood up and put the money for his coffee on the table.

"Leaving already?"

"I have a book to write."

"You have an idea?"

"…"

"Good luck Sasuke!" Kakashi waved cheerfully.

The young Uchiha ignored him and quickly left, hoping his name didn't draw any unwanted attention.

Unwanted attention? Good lord, he was losing it.

He wondered if all this would've happened if instead of tequila, he went out to smoke with Shikamaru or someone that night his muse showed up.

… Well, he'd rather not think about that, or else he might jinx it and end up with a _female_ muse the next day, one who would probably undress him with her eyes, like most females do.

No he wasn't cocky, it was the honest truth.

Even some males did that, and Sasuke didn't know how he felt about that, so he just ignored everybody.

As he drove off, he realized something.

Kakashi never touched the cake. Which meant he missed his chance to his face.

_Oh whatever, I'll get him someday. _But throughout the drive, he couldn't shake the feeling that Kakashi knew way more than he was letting on.

* * *

"Oh, I know," Kakashi said to no one in particular as he went to pay, leaving an untouched slice of cake on the table.

* * *

"Vampires? Are you out of your damn mind? No! Never! I should shoot you for coming up with such a stupid idea!" a loud voice exclaimed.

Kiba tried to shrink back into his seat. Normally, his editor was a really (stupid) chill guy, but when it came down to doing work, he was scary. "But I thought vampires were in right now?"

Suigetsu rolled his eyes and placed his chin in his palm. "They are, after that lame book about a vampire and a human came out. But that is just some teenage bull. You're an adult! Write adult stuff!"

Kiba blushed. "I-I don't write that kind of stuff!"

If Suigetsu wanted adult stuff, he should probably go have a word with Kakashi and make Sasuke do it, after all, for a romance story, didn't that stuff have to be in there anyway?

"Stop spacing out!"

Kiba's attention snapped back to him and he controlled himself from saying how much Suigetsu resembled Karin when he yelled like that.

"And I didn't mean that kind of adult stuff you moron. I meant an actual piece of comedic literature, not something about some emo girl wanting a threesome."

"Then… Werewolves?" Kiba asked cautiously, hoping he wouldn't set off his editor.

"Werewolves? NO!"

Kiba eeped and tried to subtly push his chair back a bit so he could make a quick escape if necessary.

"Stop moving your chair!"

Kiba stopped.

"You must have something else. Something original?"

"Aren't you supposed to help me out with this?"

Suigetsu, who had previously been staring at the ceiling with a bored expression, lowered his eyes onto the brunette in front of him, in kind of a scary way. "You're the writer. You write. I'm the editor. I edit."

Kiba sighed and sat up straighter, figuring his editor's rampage was over for the moment. "Then… I don't know! Do you want me to do something stupid like document someone's life and make fun of it?"

Suigetsu was about to shoot that idea to hell, when he heard some girls talking outside his office.

He unfortunately recognized the voices of Sakura, Ino and Karin who were walking down from Kakashi's office to their own.

On any other given day, Suigetsu would go bug them. On his busy days like today, he would ignore them. But today was not one of those days and he decided to go and eavesdrop on the girls, maybe their gossip could lead him and Kiba to something.

"So I can't believe no one told us about him!" Sakura began, her tone slightly angry.

"Even more, I can't believe that Kakashi's not Sasuke's editor anymore!" Karin added.

Suigetsu raised a brow from behind the door. He motioned for Kiba to follow him as he quietly opened the door and the two carefully walked behind the three girls without being noticed.

"I know right? If only we had known that being Sasuke's new editor was up for grabs, I would've gone and asked for it," Ino sighed dejectedly.

"As if you would get the job, he would've obviously given it to me." Sakura shot with superiority.

Ino glared at her but before she could retaliate, Karin cut her off. "No, he would still have given it to that new guy, hence why he's Sasuke's new editor, that lucky bastard."

Suigetsu and Kiba shared a glance. There was a new guy amongst them? Why hadn't they been told of anything?

"And he had to be blonde and blue eyed! It's like Kakashi's torturing Sasuke by putting him with a male version of me!"

"Bullshit Ino," the other two deadpanned.

She pouted. "Whatever you two. Anyway, I don't see anything special about this guy other than the fact that he resembles me."

"He _doesn't_ resemble you." Karin stated. "He's actually good looking."

"Fuck you."

"Hell no."

"Guys, come on. We're at work. Be professional," Sakura cut in, stepping between the two without fear. "Save it for the bar fights later."

Kiba didn't have to see him to know that Suigetsu had a shit eating grin on his face.

"What was his name again? Na… Na…?"

"Naruko?"

"Naruto."

"Oh yeah! Naruto. I don't care what he does as long as he doesn't try anything with Sasuke, though I'm positive he doesn't swing that way."

_I don't think he swings at all,_ Kiba and Suigetsu thought honestly, still following them.

"Maybe that's why Sasuke came here the other day, to demand a new editor?" Karin suggested as the three stopped walking.

"Maybe," the other two agreed.

"In that case, I hope that Naruto guy screws up enough so one of us can take his place," Sakura finished, imagining being Sasuke's editor as hearts floated around her.

The other two nodded, wished Naruto some bad luck, then went on their ways to their respective offices.

Suigetsu and Kiba waited until all three doors closed before deciding to talk.

The brunette looked at his editor and jumped. The man was wearing that evil grin of his, and an idea was hatching.

"Didn't Kakashi say something about Sasuke liking blondes?" Suigetsu asked nonchalantly as he walked back to his office. Kiba walked quickly to catch up with him.

"I think so, why?"

"And this _new editor_ is a blonde, right?"

Kiba nodded. "Apparently from the what they said."

Suigetsu abruptly stopped right in front of his door, making Kiba crash into him.

The editor turned around, still grinning. Kiba was starting to get a little scared again.

"What was that you were saying earlier, about documenting someone's life?"

Kiba gulped. _Sasuke… I'm so sorry! Please don't kill me!_

* * *

Back home, Sasuke sneezed. Then cursed whoever was talking about him.

* * *

Naruto looked back at Kakashi after the three girls left. He seemed a little tense. "I don't think they like me very much."

Kakashi chuckled. "Don't take it personally, it's just that you're working with Sasuke and they would kill to work with him."

Naruto paled slightly at the word kill.

"Sasuke's a very popular guy, isn't he?"

Kakashi interlaced his fingers in front of his face and nodded cheerfully. "Oh yes. But he hates it. Ironic huh?"

Naruto nodded slowly. He sneezed.

"Bless you." Kakashi smiled, knowing who was behind that sneeze.

He wasn't expecting to see all three girls come into his office right at the time when he was talking to Naruto about Sasuke's latest book, which he had just finished reading. Kakashi was planning on introducing him to everyone once Sasuke won another award and they all had to mingle with each other at the celebratory party.

But oh well, this worked too. Though he reminded himself to keep an eye on those three, he didn't want them trying to sabotage Naruto and Sasuke.

"Well Naruto, again, I wish you luck with Sasuke, and please be patient with him, he'll come around soon enough, he did with me," Kakashi told him kindly.

_He did? I thought he hated you?_ Naruto smiled sheepishly. "I hope so."

Naruto excused himself and was about to leave the office when Kakashi spoke.

"Oh and Naruto, when will he know? You know that Sasuke's smart, he'll eventually figure it out."

Naruto chuckled. "I think he would prefer it that way."

He knew there was a reason he hired him right off the bat. He smirked behind his mask. "Good boy."

* * *

Ok, it was now or never.

If Sasuke wanted to find proof, he needed to go into _that_ room, where he took the pills, where he left them, to see if they were still there.

_Because of course, pills always vanish right when you need them_, Sasuke thought sarcastically.

He stood in front of the opening and looked down.

He was about to take a step forward, when he heard someone ringing his doorbell.

It was like ten at night, who the hell would go to his house at that time?

Kakashi.

Nah, he didn't want to die just yet.

Then… Naruto?

With an imperceptive sigh, Sasuke closed up the opening to his private room and walked to his door.

He opened it, preparing to tell the person to go fuck off, when he stopped.

This… This guy looked a bit like him…

"Sasuke?" The guy asked, and the Uchiha was surprised at his tone, it sounded even worse than his own.

"…?"

"I'm Sai."

Sasuke quirked a brow. An emotionless response. "I'm not interested." He didn't care if maybe this person was interesting, he would _never_ encourage a fan at this time of night—it could only end badly.

Damn psychotic fans.

"Your brother sent me."

Fuck being interesting, he would call the cops on this guy! "To what? Kidnap me? Seduce me and send it to the tabloids? Kill me?"

Still without emotion, the quiet raven with identical eyes to his simply blinked. "What kind of relationship do you have with your brother?"

Well, he wasn't one to beat around the bush it seemed, even if they were complete strangers. "A shitty one."

"… Would you like to go out with me?"

Sasuke stared. "What?"

"You know, our for a drink?" This Sai character was either very bold, or very stupid.

"Why?" Sasuke leaned against his open door and when he didn't feel anything cold on his chest, he was glad he was at least wearing a shirt. If this guy was a pervert, he didn't want to give him any eye candy.

"Because I'm supposed to drug and rape you."

Very stupidly bold it seemed.

"…"

"It's a joke. Your brother said you had no sense of humor. Though I'm not one to talk I guess. Anyway, he's throwing a party at Club Maze and he wanted you to come. Figures you should let loose for a while."

"Bullshit. Why would Itachi throw a party? He's about as social as a wall."

Sai gave a half-hearted shrug. "Something about a promotion."

"And you work with him?"

"No. My brother works with him and since I'm apparently your age, Itachi decided to send me to get you instead of coming himself."

Sasuke nodded once. "That sounds like him."

"So are you going to come?"

"… I'll be out in five."

* * *

Though they had just met less than four hours ago, Sai was surprised at seeing the way Sasuke acted at the club.

Sure Club Maze was a high end club, but that didn't mean the people there were above drinking and partying like college students during spring break.

… Luckily most of the people here were doctors.

It was interesting to see Sasuke and Itachi interact.

When Sasuke and Sai arrived, Itachi walked over to them, a smirk on his lips.

"You came." Even though the music was loud, every Uchiha had the ability to make his voice heard, even without yelling. That, was the Uchiha gift. Well, one of them at least. Sasuke was no different.

"I finally figured out your plan." Sasuke told him.

"Oh? Care to tell me what my plan is?" Sasuke rolled his eyes at the fake curiosity in his brother's voice.

"Well, with all the tequila you've given me, I know your plan is to get me wasted into oblivion, then laugh at my expense."

"And how's that going for you?"

Itachi smirked at the finger Sasuke gave him and walked towards to the bar area. Sai looked at Itachi, blinked, then followed the other raven.

Now, about two and a half hours later, Sasuke was already on his thirteenth drink.

"Not that it's any of my business, but are you sure you'll be alright after all these drinks?" Sai asked, watching Sasuke swirl around a full shot of tequila. Sasuke stared at it for a minute before sighing and bringing it to his lips.

After all the other kinds of drinks he had had so far, at least now he had something he was familiar with.

Sasuke hardly noticed how easy the drink seemed to go down now. He looked at Sai, continuously nodding his head slowly. "You know, I have a muse. I don't like him, first he appears, then disappears, then becomes my editor, then he appears and disappears, and appears and disappears, and appears and disappears…"

Sai watched him, while holding a shot of rum. It was the only thing he was planning on having that night since Sasuke came with him. (Was it normal for a guy to just hop into another guy's car like that? Wasn't he ever educated on the 'don't talk to strangers' thing in elementary school?)

He imagined it would've been amusing to see someone who appeared to always be calm, cold and composed (though he'd known him all of a half hour before that image was blown) to be so… confused and comfortable when drunk. What was that about a muse?

"Maybe you've had too much."

"No," Sasuke replied. He acted drunk, Sai knew with that amount of different, strong, drinks, he should be drunk, but his words weren't slurred. Maybe that was just luck. "Itachi wants me wasted, I'll get wasted. I might as well prepare to see my muse now, since he only shows up when I do something stupid like drinking. You know that I've only really ever had tequila? I'm not a lightweight, honest, it's just that I never really cared for alcohol. I still don't, but I keep the bottles of tequila Itachi has sent me over the years. I don't know why, but I'm glad I did. Or maybe not? I don't know how I feel about my muse cum editor."

Sai didn't reply and just let the author talk, as he easily down his shot before seeing Itachi on the other side of the club looking at him. He waved the older Uchiha over.

"Do you think he's real? I think he's real. Then I think he's not real. Then I'm schizophrenic and paranoid. Though maybe I've always been like that? I don't know, I can't remember right now." Sasuke sighed and asked for another shot of tequila.

The bartender raised a brow at him, then glanced at Sai who shook his head.

"I think you've achieved your goal for tonight."

"Yeah, I'm completely wasted."

"I can tell."

Itachi finally reached them and watched his little brother, amused. Sasuke spun around in his seat, nearly falling out, then stood up and swayed.

Itachi made a mental note to use this against Sasuke later. Apparently when drunk, he looked the same as always, just with a warmer face. He actually looked approachable. Sai stood up as well. It's a good thing he didn't come alone, otherwise he might get raped along the way home.

Sasuke brought a hand up. "Are you happy now? You've turned me into a wasted…"

He didn't finish that sentence as he swayed to the side, passing out completely. Luckily Sai and Itachi managed to get a hold of him before he hit the ground.

"I'll take him home." Sai stated. Itachi nodded.

"I've done my part. He was supposed to get drunk and make a fool out of himself, though I guess this works too."

Sai stared at him, before putting one of Sasuke's arms around his neck and placing a hand around his waist to pull him away from Itachi. "You two really do have a shitty relationship."

Itachi allowed himself a chuckle and left Sai to go back to the rest of his doctor friends, knowing he was in good hands. Well, he didn't _know_ exactly, but he knew Sai's brother and if he said Sai was alright and capable, then he should be.

The two ravens left the club, unaware that they were being watched the entire time, by a grinning silverette and a regretful looking brunette.

* * *

It was a bit of a hassle getting into Sasuke's house while trying not to let the author faceplant, but somehow he managed. Sai tried not to, but he couldn't help but somewhat drag Sasuke up the stairs.

There were a lot of rooms, which one was it?

Oh well.

Sai took him to the nearest room and laid him on the bed.

"Sorry, but I'm not going to undress you, you can sleep in those clothes," Sai deadpanned to the sleeping raven. Sasuke didn't even move. The only thing Sai did was take off his shoes.

And the whole while, he felt he was being watched.

He thought Sasuke lived alone.

_I have to admit, it was interesting watching this guy get himself so drunk in just a few hours. Looks like he's the talkative drunk, which seems to clash against his image. Maybe we should do this again sometime, he was entertaining. Though I guess I would have to get to know him more?_

There it was again, that feeling that he was being watched.

Sai raised his head from Sasuke's sleeping form and turned around.

Black eyes simply stared, calm and a tiny bit curious, he was proud of himself for showing this much emotion today.

"Who are you?"

* * *

**Yes, another cliffhanger. I've got to stop doing those, but I can't help it, even I don't know what'll happen next n_n;**

**So what do you guys think? I think I accidentally put a bit of SaiSasu in here... my bad lol**

**Well, I didn't go back and check this, so if the grammar is off, there's a lot of misspellings, etc., I'm sorry, I'll fix it later.**

**Hope you guys liked it :)**


	8. A Collaboration

**Monkey: Boy, has it been a while. My bad. Do I still even have any readers for this story? I hope so, because I got back into it so you can expect a lot more updates coming up ^^**

**As always, Naruto doesn't belong to me~**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

"I'm… Sasuke's editor, Naruto," the blonde replied, casting his blue orbs over at Sasuke's sleeping form. "Who are you?" He turned his attention to the standing raven. He tried not to let his voice betray his emotions.

"I'm the guy that brought Sasuke back from the bar." Sai didn't miss when Naruto's eyes widened slightly, so he continued. "I'm Sai. I met Sasuke a few hours ago before taking him to a bar," he clarified.

Naruto nodded. "I… see." Honestly, Sai's clarification didn't make him feel any better but he didn't want to ask for further explanation in case he wouldn't like what he heard.

"Can I ask what you're doing here? As far as I know, authors and their editors don't normally live together." Because it would be one big _hell _for the author of course. That, and their editor might actually shoot them. Or worse. "Though I could be wrong?"

The blonde looked down. "Uhm. Well, Sasuke usually gets his inspiration at night and since he has to write another book soon, I thought I'd swing by…"

"Based on first impressions, I didn't think he'd have friends like you. Good to know I was wrong."

Naruto chuckled sheepishly.

"Well it's late, you can watch after him, right?"

The blonde nodded.

"Alright. Good luck. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Sai made his way out and Naruto sighed in relief when he heard the door close.

He brought his hand in front of his face and winced at what he saw.

He could only hope he was convincing enough. He had to pray that Sai didn't suspect anything.

* * *

"Oh God," Sasuke muttered, once he awoke, his hands moving up to massage his temples. _I feel like someone repeatedly took a jackhammer to my head…_

What happened last night?

_Let's see… Some guy named Sai came to my house, took me to a bar, Itachi was there, I got drunk… Oh. My. God. I got drunk._

Ebony orbs looked around, panicking. He was in his guest room.

Worst case scenarios flew through his mind at a horrifying rate and he quickly sat up, his world swaying for a moment before realizing with relief that he was fully clothed sans his shoes.

He could've sworn he heard someone talking to Sai last night, when he was slipping in and out of consciousness. But he had been mostly out of it. Someone that sounded familiar, but he decided he was probably dreaming and swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

And fell over.

He barely caught himself with the wall. Thank goodness for those Uchiha reflexes he had.

_I haven't been this hungover in… Wait a minute, I've never been this hungover before._

There was always a first time for everything.

_Ah pills, here I come._

Clutching his head and cursing Itachi (because his brother was always his scapegoat), he walked to his bathroom where he stumbled around, trying to find his toothbrush.

He could see it, the problem was that he saw two of them and couldn't get a hold of either one.

Finally grabbing at one, he opened the drawer for some toothpaste.

_Alright, nice and steady…_

He cursed when he accidentally squeezed nearly half of it out and none of it made it onto the brush.

After struggling for half a minute, he finally got it right.

_Damn you Itachi, go to hell. I hate you so much. I hope every time I curse you, you know it._

Once he finished his morning routine (though skipping the shower for now, because at the rate he was going, falling and killing himself while showering seemed pretty likely), he made his way to the stairs.

Those really long, really dangerous stairs for his hungover self.

_One day, I'll put an elevator in my house to help when I'm hungover again._

He paused in thought.

_Again?_

Again implied that he'll go and get wasted sometime in the future.

Fuck that.

Not if all the following mornings would start out like this.

Holding onto the handrail, he slowly continued down the stairs.

And nearly screamed when he saw a certain blonde standing in his kitchen making coffee.

Naruto heard someone stumble behind him and stop short. He turned around with a smile. "Good morning, Sasuke."

_There's nothing good about this morning. How can he be so cheerful when I'm miserable? Ah wait, he doesn't know I'm miserable._ At least, not any more than usual. "… What are you doing here?"

Naruto turned around to get the coffee and offered it to him. "Well I've come to help you with your next book."

Sasuke eyed him warily, decided it was too early to kick him out (never mind the fact that he didn't even know what time it was, or that he didn't want to be alone until he was fully sober), and took the coffee.

Sasuke walked to the dining room table and Naruto followed.

"He seemed nice."

Sasuke sat down and raised his cup to his lips after asking, "Who?"

"Your date last night."

The Uchiha nearly choked on his drink. Naruto rushed to him in worry.

"Are you ok?"

Sasuke lifted a hand up to give him a moment to get himself together. He took in a few slow breaths.

Ah, so he hadn't completely hallucinated a conversation between Sai and someone who sounded familiar.

"He wasn't my date." He swirled his coffee around in the mug. "He's just a guy I met who took me to a bar…" He finished the rest of his coffee moments later and ignored the fact that his last statement sounded like he'd had a one night stand.

The writer noticed the silence that followed. Despite himself, he glanced at his editor and noticed he looked unhappy, thinking hard about something. "What?"

Naruto snapped out of his reverie and smiled. "What?"

Sasuke didn't care if it didn't work on him, he still narrowed his eyes a bit.

Ah, the wonders of coffee, so quickly returning him to his scary self.

"Sasuke, Kakashi told me to tell you that if you don't meet your next deadline, he'll send over someone named Sakura. I think I've met her before. She's the pink haired girl, right?"

Sasuke's eyes widened a fraction before going back to normal. _As if_ he would let Kakashi send one of his biggest fan girls over to help him out of this slump! They would rape him the moment they set foot in his house!

Besides, he got himself out of his previous writer's block, he could do it again.

Naruto looked over at him. "But luckily for you, I'm here to help you."

Sasuke rolled his eyes at the smile on the blonde's face. "For the last time, I don't need your help." He stood up, shook his head a bit to rid himself of the dizziness and went to sit on his couch, making himself comfortable.

Naruto didn't let Sasuke's attitude scare him away, he knew that he didn't _really_ mean it. Ok so he probably did, but that was alright, Naruto was determined with Sasuke. He was a big softie at heart; he'd seen how nice Sasuke had been when he came over to his house while he was sick.

All he needed to do was find that heart.

Buried deep inside a thick layer of Uchiha ice especially designed to keep his heart away from the world…

Naruto went and sat on the couch opposite of where Sasuke was after putting the cup in the sink. "Sasuke, can I ask you something?"

"No."

He would ask anyway. "What made you want to be an author?"

Sasuke regarded him for a moment before looking away from those sapphire eyes that reminded him of his first encounter with his muse. There was just no way they weren't the same person. They had to be. But how had he imagined Naruto before even meeting him?

Had he imagined him at all? Was it possible that maybe Naruto…

"Sasuke?"

He blinked out of his reverie and looked at the curious editor. Sasuke closed his eyes and gave a small sigh.

"It was a quick way to spite my brother. Something about me being able to beat my brother at the only thing he's terrible at. Or something along those lines, I forget. That, and I like to write. I guess."  
Naruto tilted his head to the side a bit. "What kind of relationship do you have with your brother?"

"A shitty one." Ah look at that, deja vu.

Naruto looked at the portrait of the Uchiha family hanging in the living room. They were a lucky family, gifted with knowledge, good looks and incredible talents. The only thing they lacked was a heart. Well, the males at least. So rumors said. Not that Naruto listened to any of the rumors. "I would like to have a brother."

"You can have mine. Take him. I'll have him shipped to you. In a box. Without holes." Those onyx orbs opened, looking straight at the blonde, completely serious. Oh, Naruto would be lying if he said those eyes didn't do anything to him. Such a strong gaze.

He chuckled lightly while searching for a topic change, not doubting the Uchiha. "We should go and plan out your next story, where's your laptop?"

"My room."

"Let's go then."

And Naruto hopped off the couch and grinned, walking over to Sasuke and taking his hand, pulling him off the couch.

"Hey, let go," Sasuke began, attempting to pull his hand away, until he felt a jolt of electricity go through him when the blonde's hand captured his. He stared at their hands while Naruto led him easily to his room. The blonde didn't even notice the stare.

What was that?

Since when did he let people touch him, let alone hold his hand like that, and _pull him around_, in his own house of all places?

And that spark…?

Didn't Naruto feel it too?

Or had he imagined it all?

_Great, I'm still insane._ At least he was kind of sober now. _Seems like a good time to continue thinking of the most effective way to get rid of my brother._ Notice he wanted the _most_ effective way. He already had an extremely long list of ways to get rid of his brother, but none so far that didn't automatically point him out as the main suspect.

His thoughts were cut short when they reached his room and Naruto happily opened the door for him. He led him to the bed where he tried to help Sasuke get comfy but the writer would have none of that and tried to get up several times only to have Naruto continue to push him back.

An Uchiha was incredibly stubborn, but Sasuke blamed his still slightly hazy mind when he gave up and sat down.

The blonde smiled and brought his laptop over, careful to avoid tripping over the cord.

"It's not a good idea for me to write in this state of mind." Sasuke stated, turning on his laptop and going through his documents. Kakashi was next on his hit list after Itachi for making him write so much. So what if he was one of his best writers? Couldn't Kakashi send some editor to harass another author?

He added a couple things into some miscellaneous files he had lying around in his documents and closed his laptop. "I don't feel like writing something right now." He got up, put his laptop back on his desk and sat back down on the bed, crossing his arms over his chest. So what if he looked like a kid right now, he was still sobering up, he was allowed less than perfect moments.

Naruto tried to hide his smile and reached for one of Sasuke's hands and began pulling him towards his desk. "Come on Sasuke!"

"No," Sasuke pulled his hand back but Naruto wouldn't let him go.

"Please?" Naruto pulled his hand again making Sasuke move forward a little.

"I don't want to." The Uchiha yanked his arm back, accidentally pulling Naruto towards him.

The blonde tripped over the cord he avoided earlier and landed on top of the Uchiha.

Sasuke's eyes widened, just as Naruto's did.

They ended up with Naruto barely brushing his lips against Sasuke's.

The raven haired writer froze as Naruto scrambled to get off of him, a thousand apologies following.

"Oh God I'm so sorry Sasuke, I promise I didn't mean to, please don't kill me or fire me I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry I—"

Sasuke put a hand up to stop him but avoided looking at him in the eyes. "It's fine. It was an accident. Don't worry." He paused for a bit and stood up, walking to the other side of his room. "Though I meant when I said I can't write in this state of mind. Let me sober up a little more, then I can work."

Naruto frowned, looking extremely guilty. "Sasuke—"

Sasuke glanced over his shoulder. "I said it's fine."

The blonde opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it right after. "I'm sorry Sasuke. I'll leave you alone now. I'll come back later." He had no intention of coming back anytime soon.

Sasuke turned back around and nodded. Knowing that would be the only acknowledgement he would receive, Naruto walked out of the room feeling really bad about what happened.

The youngest Uchiha didn't move until he heard the front door close. He walked back to his bed and gracelessly through himself down on it, burying his face into his pillow. He moved his head to the side to stare at his wall and sighed.

That was sadly, his first kiss.

And he didn't know how to feel about that.

_And it had to be with my editor of all people, the same one I'm positive is haunting me every other night…_

Despite having almost every female and even some males practically throwing themselves at him, he never dated anyone. He constantly rejected people all throughout his school life because he didn't feel like dating. He saw some of his friends start to date other people and most of them were disasters, like back in high school. In college things got a little more serious but even then, most of them didn't last either.

Sasuke never really wanted to go through all that.

It didn't help that all any of his admirers ever saw was his appearance. No one actually tried getting to know him, what he liked, what he didn't like, nothing. Everyone just assumed he was just a pretty face and wanted him for that.

_If they did get to know me, they'd probably think I'm psychotic and stop liking me._ Sasuke chuckled miserably to himself.

A couple of his friends had tried setting him up with people in the past, but Sasuke hated that and quickly made his dates miserable enough so they would leave first.

Not only that, but he easily avoided all those high school and college games at parties where people went around kissing each other, and doing "things" to each other.

Sadly, even Itachi said he needed a life. Or a girlfriend. Or boyfriend, if he swung that way. Sasuke remembered throwing his calculus textbook at him for that.

And now Naruto and he accidentally shared a kiss.

_Great. Awesome. This kind of thing only happens to me._

* * *

"Why do these things always happen to me?" Naruto asked himself as he drove back to his house.

His cheeks turned pink at the thought of him accidentally planting a kiss on Sasuke.

He came to a stop at a red light and leaned his head back with a disappointed sigh.

"That could've gone better." Naruto shook his head and waited for the light to change. "Next time, I'll just let Sai deal with him."

The light changed, and as Naruto moved out of the intersection, somewhere in the city Sai sneezed.

"My first kiss," Naruto breathed out after he parked his car and went into his house. His cheeks turned pink again. He sat down on his couch and covered his face. "With Sasuke… Ah jeez. Now I know I can't stop thinking—"

Naruto's phone rang and he jumped, reaching for it in his pocket. It was Kakashi. Oh God. Did he know what happened with him and Sasuke? Was it against policy at their company to accidentally kiss the people you work with? "H-hello?"

"Naruto! Hey, are you still at Sasuke's?"

The blonde swallowed. "Uh no, I just left, why?"

"Because I've been trying to reach him but his cell is off, his landline is disconnected and my emails won't get through."

Naruto sat up straighter. "Is something wrong?"

"No, but I've got a big thing planned for Sasuke, so I guess I'll just head over there and talk to him myself one of these days, it's obvious he doesn't want to talk to me anymore than usual. Thanks Naruto, see you tomorrow at work." And he hung up.

Well that was… Odd.

Though he was happy Sasuke was going to have a big project ahead of him, he wondered why he disconnected himself from the world.

"Oh man, what if he's so pissed off at me that he doesn't want to talk to anyone?" Naruto whined, leaning back against the couch, tossing his phone carelessly beside him which then bounced off the couch and landed on the floor.

He didn't care, his phone would be fine.

Sasuke on the other hand, didn't seem like it.

Naruto raked a hand through his blonde hair. He frowned. "I guess I won't visit him in a while."

* * *

"It's a damn shame we still don't have much to go on for this story," Suigetsu complained to Kiba one morning as the two stepped into the large building they worked at.

Kiba winced. "Do we really have to follow Sasuke around? I feel like he's gonna kill us when he finds out." And he said _when_ not _if_ because Sasuke was an Uchiha and Uchihas were infamous for being nearly omniscient. One prior incident with Sasuke's older brother had proved that theory.

"Oh he definitely will, that's why you gotta go out with a bang before he kills you." Suigetsu grinned at him as they took the elevator to their floor.

"Wait, why will he only kill me? It was your idea!" Kiba argued. The elevator came to a stop.

Suigetsu laughed. "I'm like one of his best friends, he'd never kill me!"

By the time he noticed the elevator doors were opened, it was too late. Sasuke was standing outside their elevator staring at them with a brow raised. Beside him was someone who looked like a copy of Sasuke just paler with shorter hair and more of a curious look.

"Who'd never kill you?" Sasuke asked.

Suigetsu discreetly stepped closer to Kiba as they attempted to get out of the elevator without blocking Sasuke's way. "Uh, you?"

The Uchiha stared at him for a second before scoffing. "Whatever makes you sleep at night."

He walked into the elevator with his lookalike behind him and pressed the button for the doors to close.

Once they did, Suigetsu let out a sigh of relief.

Kiba laughed. "What was that you were saying earlier?"

"Shut up and help me figure out who was that guy with him. Did you notice how alike they look? It's creepy."

Kiba trailed behind Suigetsu like a puppy as he made faces at the back of his head.

"Stop making faces and make yourself useful, go spy on the girls," his editor ordered without turning around. Kiba's jaw dropped before he shook his head and decided he wanted a new editor as he made his way to where the girls usually gossiped.

"Oh my gosh, did you see the guy with Sasuke today?" Ino asked as she, Karin and Sakura sat at a table by the entrance to the hallway.

Kiba made his way to a desk to hide behind without the girls noticing.

"Yeah! He kinda looked like Sasuke actually," Sakura commented before sipping on her tea. "He was a lot paler though."

"Sasuke is still way hotter, but it was odd seeing someone look so much like him," Karin replied as she typed away at her phone. She was probably on some social networking site letting people know how Sasuke looked that day, down to the exact clothes he was wearing.

It was her turn to report to the fangirls.

"Anyone catch his name?" Sakura asked, looking towards the elevator Sasuke and his mystery companion used to leave.

"I think he said 'Sai' at some point," Ino answered, swirling the straw around her drink.

"'Sai' huh?" Karin typed away at her phone again. "I'll spread the word and see what kind of information I get back."

Kiba raised a brow and made a mental note not to piss off a large group of fangirls who could probably do better research than the FBI.

Suigetsu was nowhere to be found and Kiba briefly wondered where he was and if he could bring him some food because he made him skip breakfast that morning.

Quietly pulling out his phone, he texted his editor.

-Hungry. Trade info for food.-

He silenced his phone so the girls wouldn't hear it and went back to eavesdropping on them.

"I wonder what they were doing together. Seeing as how they probably came from a meeting with Kakashi, it was probably work related." Karin said, eating a muffin.

"Do you think Sai is also an Uchiha?" Ino wondered.

Sakura sneered at her. "Don't be silly. Just because he kind of looked like Sasuke, doesn't mean he's on par with the Uchiha status."

Karin's phone beeped and she checked it. "Get this, apparently he's a painter who does lots of work that gets sold around the world at really high prices. And his pastimes include going out to draw whatever he sees and working on children's story books."

Kiba was impressed. Girls had their ways alright. He took his chance to look at his own phone and saw he had a reply from Suigetsu.

-No shot. Info. Plan. Work. And then food. Maybe. If you're a good puppy.-

Kiba made a face at his phone. He stopped when he saw he got another text from his editor.

-Stop making faces. Keep listening in on them.-

Geez, it was like Suigetsu was all-knowing today. Well, except when Sasuke showed up. Speaking of the Uchiha, he turned his attention back to the girls.

"Think we can talk to Kakashi and see what they all talked about?" Sakura asked.

"Not only that, I want to know what happened to Naruto. He wasn't with him today," Karin replied.

"You're right. I say when we go on our break, we go in and talk to Kakashi." Ino said. The other two nodded and then they finished their breakfasts and went to their respective offices to get to work.

Kiba waited until all their doors closed before coming out of his hiding spot.

Suigetsu appeared behind him from out of nowhere and put his arm around his shoulder. "So, what'd you find out?"

After feeling his heart stop for a couple seconds, Kiba took in a deep breath and shrugged. "I'm not really sure."  
"Come, let us talk in my office," Suigetsu spoke with a grin.

Kiba shook his head as they walked. Sasuke was still going to kill them, both of them, once they were done.

* * *

Sasuke and Sai reached the artist's house after a fifteen minute drive and as soon as Sai parked, Sasuke sneezed.

"Bless you," Sai replied as they got out of the car.

Sasuke nodded and cursed whoever was thinking about him.

Sai unlocked the front door and stepped aside so Sasuke could enter first. It wasn't as odd as when he first walked into Naruto's house, but that was probably because he was actually with Sai this time around.

"Got any ideas for our upcoming story?" Sai asked as he headed into the kitchen. "Want something?"

"I have no idea." Sasuke replied. "Got any food?"

Sai chuckled. "I'll see what I can make. Just make yourself at home."

Sasuke looked around. There was a lack of decorations like at his house. Everything was nice and neat just like at his house. And oh my god, they had the same couches. Sasuke sat down on one of them and leaned back. Maybe he _could_ make himself at home here.

It had been a week since Sasuke and Naruto had their "incident" and they hadn't seen each other or spoken to each other at all. It didn't bother the author too much, a lack of interference from any editor was a blessing, but something else bothered him.

His muse hadn't shown up in a week either.

It coincided with Naruto's absence, but Sasuke was positive his muse wasn't real. Like, _at all_, despite his striking similarities to his new editor.

… Could the muse have come from a lack of contact with people and this was his mind's way of saying he needed to finally get laid?

Sasuke shook his head quickly, ridding himself of that ridiculous thought.

Nonsense, he was just fine the way he was, and his apparent schizophrenia had nothing to do with his lack of association with people.

"What do you want to drink?" Sai called from the kitchen.

"Coffee. Black." Sasuke replied, bringing his attention back to the artist.

Somehow, and Sasuke wasn't pointing any fingers (Itachi, because he already knew Kakashi and his brother had had some kind of contact in the past at some point), it came to Kakashi's attention that he and Sai had gone out for a drink. Obviously, Kakashi would know that Sai is a famous artist that liked to draw children's books for fun and he thought, 'what better way to ruin Sasuke's life than by putting him and Sai to work together and make a children's book?'

Because of course, _that's_ what Sasuke specialized in. Children's books.

He'd never written a children's book in his life.

Sai assured him it wouldn't be too difficult.

Sai had been on board with the idea of working with the Uchiha. Something about enjoying his presence after seeing him wasted the other day.

Kakashi grinned at him as Sasuke rolled his eyes and pretended he had no idea what he was talking about.

Their deadline was in a couple months, and Sasuke was given a break from his other deadline as long as he and Sai worked together.

_I guess anything is fine as long as I don't have to deal with my other deadline._ A part in his mind wanted to add "Naruto" to that thought, but a different part of his mind started to admit he missed the happy editor.

"Food's ready." Sai made their breakfast and coffee and started setting it on the table as Sasuke helped him. They ate in silence and the Uchiha found it comfortable rather than getting the feeling he needed to say something, like he did with Naruto.

And there his thoughts went again, to the blonde haunting him all day and night. Could it just be a residual feeling from having his first kiss taken from him?

"Something on your mind?" Sai asked, after he finished eating.

Sasuke looked up from his coffee. "No. Why?"

Sai shrugged. "You look thoughtful."

"I'm thinking about this story we're supposed to do. I hate how Kakashi always likes to give me nearly impossible deadlines." Sasuke easily avoided talking about what was really bothering him after he finished eating as well.

"But you always make them, right?"

Dark eyes met. "Yes."

"Then be flattered, because he's positive you could do it, otherwise he wouldn't give you such deadlines." Sai stood up and gathered their plates. Sasuke attempted to help but Sai rejected his offer.

He had to admit, Sai was probably right.

"Anyway, I think I might have an idea, if you're open to it?"

"Sure, what is it?"

* * *

Naruto walked into the building he worked at with a yawn.

"Good morning Naruto," a pretty raven haired girl with pale eyes greeted.

"Morning Hinata. Do you know if Kakashi is in?" Naruto smiled. She always greeted him in the morning and her kindness always put him in a good mood. Even when she was in a rush, like she probably was today, she made time and stopped to talk to him.

She thought for a bit. "Yes, he's talking to Sasuke and Sai."

Sai? What the heck was he doing there? "Ok, thanks Hinata." He grinned at her and walked towards the elevator as she left the building to go run some errands. Why was Sai with Sasuke at their job?

A couple minutes later, he reached the floor where Kakashi's office was and he knocked on his door.

"Come in."

Naruto opened the door and saw Sasuke and Sai sitting in front of Kakashi with a third chair beside the Uchiha.

"Ah Naruto, just in time. Sit down, we have much to discuss." Kakashi said, motioning for him to come inside.

Hesitantly, Naruto stepped inside and avoided looking at the Uchiha who didn't look at him. Sai on the other hand was watching his every move with curiosity. Naruto felt uncomfortable and wondered if Kakashi could tell.

"Alright, normally I like to keep things simple and have one editor to one author, but I'm about to make an exception," Kakashi began. "Naruto, you will still be Sasuke's editor, but I've decided to make you guys a trio and include an artist, Sai."

Sasuke raised a brow. "You wanted more than one collaboration? What about my own writing? I have a series going you know."

"Yes I know, but I'm confident you can manage both at one time. You are after all, one of my most capable writers." Kakashi easily replied. He looked at Sai. "How does that sound?"

The artist shrugged. "Fine."

Kakashi and Sai looked at Naruto. Even Sasuke cast him a glance.

A trio meant working with Sai, who sounded like he had a one night stand with Sasuke. He could be that barrier between Sasuke and Naruto that would prevent awkward meetings because of what happened in their last meeting. It also meant seeing the Uchiha more again.

"Sure, why not?"

How bad could it be?

* * *

**Monkey: Well, of course it'll get bad XD **

**Thanks to anyone who is still keeping up with story, I promise it'll get better! This was more of a transition chapter into a different arc you could say lol. Things are about to get a whole lot more interesting xD**

**And no worries, this won't be a SasuSai or SaiSasu, this will be a SasuNaru, eventually xD**

**Hope you all liked it and I'll be seeing you guys again real soon :D**


	9. Chased Out

**Monkey: Well, I updated before 2012 ended! XD This story is going to come to an end soon, within maybe five or six chapters? I don't know, I'm really out of ideas for this story. If anyone has any ideas, anything they'd like to see, whatever, please let me know. It'd be a great help.**

**Haven't done a disclaimer in a while sooo:**

**Disclaimer? Disclaimed. :P**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

The youngest Uchiha woke up to the sound of his front door slowly unlocking.

Breathing in a little deeply as he slowly opened his eyes and left the land of dreams, he found the right side of his face was plastered to the keyboard on his laptop. With a slight grimace, he lifted his head, rubbing the back of his neck as he did so.

He had to stop falling asleep in these kinds of positions. His body would kill him for it later in old age. Or just sooner in life than intended and if he got old before Itachi, the older Uchiha would never let him live it down.

He reached out to the cell by his laptop and pressed it to see the time. Two-fifteen in the morning.

_What the hell?_ He thought maybe Kakashi came or even Itachi, but the former didn't have a death wish and the latter doesn't have a key to his house.

_Not that I know of…_ Sasuke quietly stood up and walked to the closed door of his room and tried to hear anything else. Maybe it was just a dream?

_What if it's my—_

Giggling. He heard giggling.

Definitely not Itachi.

_Shit. It's a fangirl._

He heard _two_ distinctly female voices whispering downstairs as they walked across his living room.

_There's two of them. Fuck._

As quietly as he could, he grabbed his cell phone, yanked the flashdrive out of his laptop (that he thankfully transferred everything to last week in case something happened to his laptop), took a pair of shoes out of his closet and dashed into the bathroom connected to his room.

He silently closed the door and unlocked his phone. Eighty percent battery would be enough to last him a while should he need to make a quick getaway. Just in case, he better get his shoes on now.

_I'm running away from my own house. How wrong is this? Why would anyone even _want_ to break into my house?_

Scrolling through his contacts, he paused at one in particular, his thumb hovering over it. It was a number he didn't ever like to call. Resigned, he pressed it and placed the phone by his ear.

"… Sasuke?" He heard after the fifth ring, stopping him from disconnecting the call.

"Kakashi," Sasuke whispered, going to the opposite side of the door. The older man sounded incredibly sleepy, but Sasuke didn't give a damn, his life could potentially be in danger! There was no telling how close the girls were and he would try to buy himself as much time as he could in case things turned ugly. He frowned and hissed, "It's the fangirls, they finally broke in!"

There was silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds before Kakashi burst out in laughter. Oh the writer was going to skin him alive the next time he saw him.

Sasuke immediately lowered all the volume on the call—he'd be damned if he let Kakashi give him away—and glared pain and death into his phone. "Kakashi, this is serious. Quit laughing or I will skin you through this phone call."

He heard some snickering before Kakashi cleared his throat and spoke. "Ok ok, where are you right now?"

"I'm hiding in the bathroom. Laugh and die."

Kakashi bit his lip to keep from laughing. "Yes yes, why don't you just climb out a window and go to someone's house?"

"Neji and Gaara live on the other side of town. My car keys are downstairs, wherever I go, I have to go on foot."

"Suigetsu?"

"He lives next door to Karin. I think she'd be worse than the fangirls."

"Sai?"

"He's in Europe for the week—won't be back till Tuesday and by then, the police probably won't even be able to find my remains."

"If you get out, I could pick you up from somewhere."

"You'll never get here in time." Sasuke heard whispering and giggling coming up the stairs. "Shit. They're closing in!"

Kakashi snapped his fingers. "I got it. Naruto. He lives about ten minutes from you by car, that's maybe twenty minutes of walking, if you walk fast. Maybe fifteen if you run."

Yes, _that_ was a good idea, go to the home of the guy who accidentally stole his first kiss. But did he have any other options?

The whispering got closer to his door.

"Alright, fine," Sasuke lowered his voice even more as he walked across the large bathroom and went straight for the window. He opened it carefully so as not to give him away just yet. "Do me a favor and call him for me. Tell him I'll be there soon."

"Good luck Sasuke."

The Uchiha hung up, slipped his phone into his pocket and grabbed the sides of the window, before swinging a leg over.

_This is completely ridiculous. People are insane, chasing me out of my own house._

… Why didn't he just call the police?

The doorknob started turning.

No time to question his actions. It was time to jump.

When he was younger, he sometimes liked to get out of his room without having to see Itachi (because let's face it, just seeing him ticked him off, and usually they would wrestle around with each other whenever they met up in the large house as long as their parents weren't around) by opening the window in his room and jumping out. It always worked until Itachi caught on one day, jumped out the window of his room next to Sasuke's and prevented Sasuke from leaving the house without seeing him. Sasuke counted it as a victory however, when he jumped out and landed on Itachi who unfortunately for him, broke the younger Uchiha's fall.

Their parents had found out and weren't too happy with either of them, forbidding them from jumping out windows, even if it was only from the second story.

Hopefully now, he could still do it.

Sasuke mentally prepared himself, swung the other leg over and jumped from the bathroom window on the second floor.

And not a moment too soon because as soon as he landed, he heard a girl shriek, "Oh my gosh! We're in his room!"

"How can you tell?"

"Can't you smell that delicious scent? It smells like Sasuke!"

Sasuke didn't stick around; he had landed safely and took off running away from the house. As soon as he was out of sight from any window in his room, he would slow down, head to Naruto's and call the police.

Or maybe he should just call the police now?

_I don't even have my keys. Or any money. Damn fangirls._

It wasn't until he was a few minutes away from his house walking at a calm pace that he noticed it was rather chilly out. And dark. Really, really dark. And more than just chilly, it was downright cold.

Though that could be attributed to his state of dress, what with him just wearing just a white tank and dark blue sweatpants. At least he managed to grab a pair of shoes. Why oh why did he not go to sleep in a hoodie like always? Sneezing, he hoped he wouldn't end up with another cold. Since Sai was currently out of the country, Sasuke had to work on his own novel in the meantime and if he got sick now, he wouldn't have much progress in it before Sai returned.

Sasuke fished his phone out of his pocket and checked the time. Great, it was still way too early for anyone to be awake.

Why couldn't his fans stalk him in the daylight hours like every other normal stalker fan he had?

Why couldn't Sai be in the country the one time he needed him?

Since they started working together, Sasuke had to admit, they were friends now. It hadn't been too hard, they found that they were alike in many ways. Including when it came to harassing Suigetsu and Kiba, who had lately been near the both of them a lot more often now. Sasuke and Naruto still couldn't look each other in the eyes though.

As Sasuke walked, he recalled Sai asking about what happened.

* * *

"Nothing," Sasuke replied, opening a new document on his laptop at Sai's place in order to write down some ideas for their upcoming story. He tried to stay focused on the screen in front of him but he just stared blankly at it, his hands unmoving over the keyboard.

"Lies." Sai scrapped one of his drawings for one of their characters and started again, using a black pen. "He's been to your house before, right?" Sai watched Sasuke's reaction, and instead of sketching out their main character, he started drawing Sasuke's profile.

Sasuke tensed but nodded as he started typing again. "Of course. He's my editor."

Sai nodded. "Stays late."

"Yeah." Sasuke replied absentmindedly as an idea came to him and he typed away. Until he finished, then he thought about what Sai said. "Wait, what?"

Before Sai could reply, they heard someone ring the doorbell.

Sai put away his sketch so the Uchiha wouldn't see it before it's finished and went to answer the door. "Naruto."

"Sai." Big blue eyes stared at him before blinking and snapping out of his reverie. "Is Sasuke around? I need to talk to him about a future project and he turned his cell phone off." He grinned sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his head while Sai looked at him curiously.

"He's in the living room." Sai stepped to the side so Naruto could get through, but before the blonde could pass him completely, the raven took a hold of his wrist and whispered something to him. Something Sasuke wasn't able to hear from where he was. He did hear Naruto trip a bit and stutter out some answer, but couldn't hear what exactly it was.

"Sasuke," Naruto greeted as he walked into the living room. Sasuke turned to look at him, but stared at his hair instead of looking at him in the eye. He felt awkward still around him. Apparently the blonde thought the same as he looked up at the ceiling while he spoke to him. "Kakashi was talking to me about expanding your range of genres in the field, and I think I know which direction would be the easiest to take you."

Sasuke tapped a couple keys on the keyboard and saved his program before closing his laptop. He stood up and looked at the ground where Naruto was. "I was going to get some coffee from Sai's kitchen." Without asking of course. He was starting to get far too comfortable in there. "Want to join me?"

Naruto nodded as he hummed an affirmative. Sai stayed in the living room to finish his drawings, now with a little extra something thrown in there.

Sasuke helped himself to the pot of coffee Sai had made and served Naruto some as well. "Well?"

Naruto tried it before making a face. It was black. Naruto didn't do black. Sasuke reached out a hand towards him, asking for the coffee. The blonde gave it back to him and Sasuke looked around for some sugar. He found some and put in a couple spoonfuls, then briefly tried it, surprising Naruto. "Uh, Sasuke?"

The raven ignored him and added another spoonful of sugar, sipped at it again then handed it back to his editor. Naruto curiously drank a bit and was surprised to find it was exactly how he liked it. He raised a brow at his writer and before he could ask, Sasuke answered.

"One time you were at my house and while you were looking over the chapter I'd just finished, I went into the kitchen and couldn't tell which coffee was mine. I tried yours by accident and I remembered it was incredibly sweet to the point where I felt I might have gotten diabetes. So I made this one taste about the same."

Naruto stared at him for a bit before blushing slightly and looking into the coffee he held. "Before we talk about your next project, I think we should clear some things up."

Sasuke drank half his coffee, ignoring how it kind of burned his throat. When did Sai make this? "It's fine. It was an accident. Nothing to worry about."

Naruto looked up at him and opened his mouth to say something, but closed it and nodded. "Uh, right. Great." He swirled the drink around a bit. "So, I see you've gotten pretty familiar with Sai."

Sasuke downed the last of his coffee before rinsing out the cup in the sink and washing it. "I guess. We're both cynics. Basically it. We get along for some reason."

"He's made you pretty talkative."

Sasuke smirked. "That wasn't his doing."

Naruto didn't understand who he was talking about but didn't ask any further.

When Naruto finished his coffee, Sasuke took the cup from him and washed it as well. "Naruto, you realize we can't be awkward around each other. Otherwise we can't work together." He dried his hands on his black sweats and stared into Naruto's sapphire eyes. "I've had a few editors before Kakashi, and he himself can tell you I'm his hardest writer to deal with." He stepped closer to him, and with every step he took, Naruto took a step back until he backed up into the counter. "You seemed to be doing a good job." Sasuke stopped directly in front of the blonde and looked down at him. "Unless you want to quit now?"

"No," Naruto quickly replied, looking up into black eyes. "Well, I don't mind. Like you said, it was an accident. Unless you want another editor?"

This was more like the Naruto he knew, sort of. Unafraid to challenge him.

Sasuke nodded. "Then let's just forget anything happened and just work."

Naruto smiled and started talking to him normally again.

After he left, Sai walked into the kitchen where the two had stayed for an hour talking about Sasuke's next big project after the one with Sai and his own solo works.

"Did you guys fix things?" Sai leaned against the entryway of the kitchen with his sketchpad in his hands and stared at the Uchiha who started looking for food.

"Things are fine." He opened up the fridge and found a salad in there. He pulled it out and raised a brow at Sai who nodded. The salad had cherry tomatoes in it; he was very happy. It was like Sai made it and was begging him to steal it. As Sasuke looked for a fork, Sai walked into the kitchen for some coffee, setting the sketchpad face down beside it.

He filled up a small cup with the remaining coffee and started walking out of the kitchen before he paused under the entryway. "You know it seemed like there was some awkward sexual tension going on between you two. At least you guys solved that."

Sai happily drank his coffee back out in the living room as he heard Sasuke's fork fall and clank around the ground, followed by the Uchiha cursing. Sai chuckled quietly and found another sketchpad to start working on their main character again.

Sasuke glared death at the entryway of the kitchen then picked up the fork before rinsing it out a bit so he could use it. "Idiot." He mumbled, setting the plate of salad down by the sketchpad so he could pick it up and look at it.

It was a sketch of himself with an amazing eye to detail and behind him in the shadows, was the silhouette that reminded him of someone but because it lacked any noticeable features, he couldn't quite tell who.

"You're supposed to be drawing our characters, not me," Sasuke called out as he searched for some dressing.

"The both of you are more interesting." Sai replied nonchalantly. But by then, Sasuke was too engrossed in eating the salad with the cherry tomatoes to really pay attention to what he said.

* * *

Back in the present, Sasuke sighed as he put his hands in his pockets. It was probably around forty degrees or less out right now and he was slightly shivering as he made his way to Naruto's house. Slightly because his Uchiha pride wouldn't let him shiver any more than that. He didn't even manage to check himself in the mirror before he left, did he even look halfway decent this morning?

_Then again, I am an Uchiha. So that's a ridiculous thought because Uchihas always look good, no matter the time._

No one ever said Sasuke wasn't proud of his looks.

He pulled his hands out of his pockets and rubbed them together to get them warm. He decided to wait until he was at Naruto's house to call the police about the fangirls.

Before he knew it, he was at Naruto's doorstep.

_Do I just knock now or something?_

He raised a hand up and pressed the doorbell instead of knocking.

A minute of silence passed and Sasuke shivered as a breeze kicked in. It was still freaking dark out too.

Well. Now he looked like an idiot.

A cold idiot, at that.

He raised his hand to ring the doorbell again when the door suddenly opened and a sleepy Naruto looked at him as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "Sasuke?"

"That bastard didn't call you, did he?" Sasuke muttered darkly as he noticed the blonde's confused face.

Over at Kakashi's house, the man slept soundly, until suddenly he felt that falling sensation and abruptly woke up, confused and feeling like he was forgetting something. He shrugged, figuring it was nothing and fell back to sleep.

Naruto yawned a bit before noticing how chilly it was out and how Sasuke was dressed. He stepped aside to give the Uchiha room to come in. "Sasuke, what are you doing here at, um, some dark hour of the morning?" Naruto looked everywhere for a clock but gave up when he couldn't find one after a few seconds. "Are you sick? Did something happen? Are you ok?"

Sasuke opened his mouth to reply but sneezed instead.

Naruto's eyes widened and he ran up the stairs. "Bless you! Let me get you a sweater or something to wear!"

Sasuke heard the blonde trip on his way up and shook his head, deciding to sit on the couch. Unlike Sai's place, Sasuke felt odd here. Maybe it's because Naruto was his editor and Sasuke never ever ever went to his editor's houses before. Not even Kakashi's. He felt just like he did the last time he was here.

Naruto came down the stairs with a black sweater that looked like it would fit him pretty well and Sasuke took it gratefully.

"I don't mean to bother you so early," Good lord, this was as close to an apology as he would get, "but my house was invaded by some psycho fangirls and I had to get out of there fast." Sasuke felt much warmer with the sweater on. "I… Your house is the closest to mine walking, so I came here. I should go."

Naruto sat down next to him. "No no, it's totally fine." He yawned. "Did you want to sleep still? I have a guest room."

And Sasuke didn't know why, but he felt his cheeks grow a little warm. Just what _was_ he doing there? He really didn't plan all that far ahead. Although, this experience could serve as inspiration for later material in his writing. "That works. Let me call the police first though."

He pulled out his cell phone before Naruto pointed to the phone in his living room. "You can use my landline if you want instead. You could save battery, in case you don't know when you're going back home." He grinned at him. Sasuke nodded, turned off his phone and went to use that phone instead.

It was official, Naruto was always happy all the time. He was even a morning person. At whatever ungodly hour of the morning they were in.

After he finished telling the police about the girls who broke in and where he was, Sasuke went back to the couch. They told him they'd check things out and try to bring the girls in for questioning and call him back in the morning when it was acceptable to be awake. He leaned back and made himself comfortable. "I can sleep here."

"But the guest room has blankets."

"I'm enough of an inconvenience."

"Never. Come on up!" Naruto took a hold of his hand and started pulling him towards and up the stairs.

Sasuke gave their handholding a weary look. Last time Naruto held his hand like that they ended up…

He shook his head to rid himself of those thoughts and found himself in the lit guest room as Naruto pulled out some blankets from the closet. He placed them on the bed and made them look very inviting to Sasuke's still cold body.

The Uchiha dug around in his pocket and pulled out his flashdrive. "I brought my work with me, if you have a computer I can borrow, I can work on my novel instead of sleeping. I'm already up, might as well."

Naruto walked up to him and took the flashdrive. "You should rest. Work later. After breakfast, after lunch. It's not important right now. You fell asleep at your laptop again, didn't you?"

Sasuke looked away.

"That's what I thought. So sleep."

"Fine, can I get my flashdrive back?"

"Nope." Naruto moved his hand behind his back. "Don't want you losing more sleep because I can see that you'll find my laptop and stay up all night."

Sasuke took a step towards him and Naruto stood his ground. The Uchiha took another step towards him until there were mere inches between them. He made to get the flashdrive but Naruto moved his hand.

Sasuke saw this and took a hold of his hand instead.

Surprised, Naruto took a step back and hit the bed, falling over and taking Sasuke with him. Naruto had his eyes closed tightly, scared.

Sasuke's eyes were wide, staring down at Naruto. The blonde's grip loosened and Sasuke's tightened around his hand.

They didn't kiss this time, and Sasuke was the first to recover from the fall. He let go of Naruto's hand and the blonde slowly opened his eyes and looked at him.

Sasuke smirked. "Fine. I'll sleep."

His editor turned red and quickly got off the bed, keeping the flashdrive. "R-right. Sorry about that, it was an accident honest. I'll give you your flashdrive back in the morning. Goodnight Sasuke." And without waiting for a response, Naruto dashed out of the room, closing the door beside him.

Sasuke stared at the door for a few moments before chuckling and shaking his head as he took off his shoes and laid down.

His life definitely got more interesting when Naruto showed up in his life, and even right before that, when he started drinking that damn tequila.

He closed his eyes and hoped he'd be able to get a couple hours of sleep before the police called.

* * *

Naruto placed the flashdrive on his desk and walked into the bathroom in his room. He turned on the light and saw he was blushing. He pulled at his hair.

_Why why why?_

He wondered what Kakashi would do if he found out about this.

He already knew about the other thing, but this one was different.

_Ugh._

It was late. Too late. Or incredibly early, depending on how people looked at it, so he was going to get some rest.

Hopefully.

He turned off the light, walked out of the bathroom and collapsed on the bed.

_Oh Sasuke, if only you knew_.

* * *

The Uchiha wasn't sure how long he had been asleep for, but it had only felt like a few minutes before he felt someone was staring at him.

Taking in a deep breath and slowly opening his eyes, he looked up at the person staring at him.

It was still dark out, but he could see familiar blonde hair and blues eyes.

"Naruto? What's going on?"

The blonde grinned. "Oh come on Sasuke, it hasn't been that long since you've seen me."

His muse.

Sasuke shot up in bed so fast it was like the bed suddenly lit up in flames. "What are you doing here?" He glanced at the door. "I thought you were..."

The blonde casually sat down on the bed beside him and looked at the Uchiha. "You haven't been writing much lately."

"You took my flashdrive," Sasuke accused, bringing the blankets up around him to keep himself warm. He narrowed his eyes at the grinning blonde.

So similar. It just had to be—

"I didn't take anything."

"You know what, that's it." Sasuke threw the blankets off of him and walked towards the door. His muse followed as Sasuke walked down the hall to where he remembered Naruto's room was.

"You should be working. Sai will be back soon and you haven't gotten much done for your own work, I can help with that," the blonde said.

Sasuke ignored him and lightly knocked on the door. He glanced at the muse behind him before looking back at the door and speaking. "Naruto? Naruto, are you awake?"

He heard the rustling of some blankets before someone sleepily shuffled to the door. It opened and he was greeted with the same sight from when he first arrived at Naruto's. "Sasuke? What's going on?"

Sasuke pointed a thumb behind him. "You and him are one and the same, aren't you?"

Naruto stared at him for a moment before blinking curiously. "Me and who?"

"Your clone behind me!"

Sasuke turned around to drag his muse to Naruto, only to see there was no one behind him. He dropped his arm and looked all around that hallway.

"Sasuke? Maybe you were dreaming?" Naruto offered. He yawned loudly and made to close the door. "I'll see you when the sun's up, Sasuke. Goodnight."

The door closed and Sasuke turned around. He walked up and down the hallway and he was truly and completely alone.

"What the fuck." Sasuke mumbled as he went back to the guest room. He closed the door and leaned his forehead against it. Well, that had been embarrassing. Hopefully Naruto had been too asleep to remember this in the morning.

With a small sigh, he turned around, only to slam back into the door.

There he was, his muse, sitting on the bed nonchalantly waving at him with a grin on his face. "Miss me?"

The Uchiha narrowed his eyes and opened the door again, walking back to Naruto's room.

He practically pounded on it this time. "Naruto!"

Within half a minute, the door opened again and Naruto sighed sleepily. "Sasuke, there's no one there. Maybe you're traumatized from the break in. You can sleep with me tonight." He yawned again and took a hold of Sasuke's hand, guiding him towards the bed. Naruto pushed him gently onto the bed, let go of his hand and passed out after lying down beside the raven.

Sasuke didn't move. He was sleeping in Naruto's room?

The blonde turned slightly and cuddled up with Sasuke who tensed and didn't move a single muscle.

Well now, he always got himself into these kinds of situations nowadays, didn't he?

Naruto was dead to the world and once Sasuke realized that, he relaxed some. The bed was warm, he wasn't with a stranger and he was extremely tired.

Plus his muse apparently didn't like to show up when his lookalike was around, so he'd be free of him too.

That's why he was doing this. Because it would keep that damn hallucination away.

Nothing more.

He breathed out deeply.

He would be fine as long as no one else ever found out about this.

Within seconds, he was fast asleep and once he was in deep sleep. His editor merely cuddled up more with him.

They'd both be fine, as long as the muse didn't show up and no one else saw them like this.

* * *

**Monkey: Filler? What filler? I know no such thing. Aha ;D I'm totally kidding by the way. **

**I know, I know, they're a little out of character in this one, I promise that'll be fixed by the next chapter. Just blame the way they're acting on the lack of sleep they're experiencing! :D**

**Well! We're not a single step closer to finding out why Sasuke's muse looks just like Naruto xD **

**Anyone have any thoughts or guesses? :D**

**Happy early New Year! xD**


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